If you liked the sixties …

… you’ll love Zeropoint.

It’s an immersive art exhibition (or perhaps ‘experience’ would be a better name for it), by Sabine Stonebender, and located in Kelham.

I was completely blown away by it – so much so that I’ve pulled together a whole set of photos for you to see on Flickr. Yet that is the very least of the experience, because the whole thing is continually moving and shifting and shimmering with bright, vibrant colour – and sounds form a key component of the experience as well. It’s something that you really do need to go and see for yourselves.
Some people advocate that you should set your world view to midnight when going there (On the top menu bar, World >> Force Sun >> Midnight), but I would disagree. For the intense experience you might want to set it to midnight later on, but setting it to midnight when you arrive would mean that you would miss some of the surrounding sculptures, beautiful in themselves – whether the eagle that guards the whole, the sea serpent carving a way through the waves, or the dragons that crouch on little islands, or in the main temple that forms the base of the gallery itself.

Inside you’ll find the first column of light, swelling and contracting, leading the eye upwards in bands of colour. It’s fun to immerse yourself in the volour for a while, and just appreciate the scale and immensity of it, before catching a teleport to the upper floors.

I worked my way upwards level by level: the first is open, and, to me, the most vividly sixties in feel in objects as well as bright colours: there were mushrooms and even huge shapes that looked like lava lamps! And there are objects that use optical art in a vibrant, throbbing way that is very mindblowing – particularly the op art tunnel. Walk through that for a really immersive experience!

There is a broad red path which lays out a suggested route; following it, I was reminded in a weird way of the 18th century landscape designer like William Kent and Capability Brown, who laid out their gardens to create a series of vistas or views which visitors to the garden, perambulating along the paths, would be presented with.

In fact, you aren’t constrained to follow the paths. If an object takes you fancy, you can leave the route and explore it. That, indeed, is the way to find a transport to the next level (seen here looking up from the first level).

There are different ways to move: a straightforward system of teleports to key areas (first floor; second floor; shop – because, like all the best galleries, this one has a shop); and some other, more surprising methods. To rise to the second level, I took a special elevator that rises in a column throbbing and pulsating with light to the insistent sound of a beating heart.

The second level is more enclosed and has a series of rooms and linking corridors, all fascinating in themselves. I particularly liked the corridors of fire and of ice, and the one that zapped me with electronics. Once again, there’s lots to explore and Sabine has created something vastly complex and very compelling.

If, like me, you leave wanting more, you’ll be pleased to learn that Sabine Stonebender has a blog (Life Art and the Pursuit of Fuzzyness), where you can read more about her work and find out details of her latest projects. Her Flickr album too has many fascinating pictures of work in progress.

There’s also a page of information about the project here, and a critique with a video in the SL Art News magazine here. I find the choice of music here interesting rather than convincing – I’d see it as something a bit more jagged, even techno, myself. And there’s an interview with Sabine here in SLART.

As for me, I’m certainly going back. After all, there’s the third experimental level still to explore. And I haven’t taken a ride on the Vomit Comet yet …