'Dreamachine': London's trippy immersive experience that lets you see art with your eyes closed
A new project created by a collective of artists, musicians and scientists invites visitors to explore the extraordinary potential of the mind.
Thanks to strobe lighting and surround sound technology, visitors can expect to close their eyes and see colourful patterns, shapes, landscapes, or abstract waves appear in front of them.
'Seeing art with your eyes shut' is the promise of the new immersive art experience titled 'Dreamachine', opening in London.
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What's the science behind the Dreamachine?
The surround sound, strobing and ambient lights are meant to create visual impressions in participants' minds, which are perceived differently from one person to another.
Some see single blocks of colours, others see tiny patterns.
The Dreamachine relies on a theory coined by British neuroscientist William Grey Walter (19101977) called "revelation by flicker."
In his research, he found that bright flashing lights can create visual hallucinations, which neuroscientists call stroboscopically-induced.
According to his theory, the flickering light imposes a beat to the rhythm of the brain, especially its visual part.
"What's happening in the Drea-machine is that the light is in training with this natural alpha rhythm of the brain. It's also a rhythm that we tend to observe in the brain when people are feeling relaxed. And by doing this in ways that I have to say, we still don't completely understand, that gives rise to these vivid visual experiences that people have," says Anil Seth, a neuroscientist involved in the project.
Thanks to this experience, Seth hopes to understand more about our brain.
What does the experience involve?
When participants enter the Dreamachine, they're given a blanket and are asked to lay down on a sofa in a round room.
The room is designed by the collective Assemble and can contain up to 30 people.
The session begins with a fiveminute introduction to what's going to happen, after which the full 20-minute experience begins.
People are free to leave if the experience is too intense or they feel unwell.
The session features a powerful 360-degree surround soundscape, composed by electronic music producer, Jon Hopkins.
"So it was kind of composed in stereo, and then gradually over the last year, we've mixed it in different spaces to more and more speakers, and now it's on 86 speakers in this space. So it's the most immersive possible sound," explained Hopkins.
After the experience, visitors can spend time in a space of reflection, to talk about their experience with staff members.
They can also draw what they saw and answer a questionnaire about their experience on smart tablets.
"Dreamachine" runs from 10 May until 24 July in London, and will also be available in Cardiff, Belfast and Edinburgh as part of Unboxed, an art festival happening all over the UK.
Check out the video above for an inside look at the Dreamachine experience
fied the audience with their accordion and violin-saturated "Trenuletul", proving that the more traditional sound still has a chance at Europe's biggest song contest.
Rock acts seemed to have fared the worst, with both Denmark and Bulgaria -- whose entry was a clear homage to the great rock'n'roll bands of the past -- failing to reach the final.
Ballads were a
hit-and-miss, with the Croatian entry "Guilty Pleasure" also not making it to the final on Saturday, while slow moody acts like Switzerland's Marius Bear and "Boys Do Cry" made enough of an impact to pass the grade.
One of the standout acts of the night was Iceland's Systur, whose sound -- which could be described as a crossover between Townes Van Zandt and Haim -- showed that mellow and subdued could be good if done well as they basked on the stage in the glow of
various shades of orange.
Like in previous years, songs flirting with sexual innuendos like Lithuania's sultry cabaret-like act — or even featuring overt references, such as Latvia's veganthemed song's opening line about "eating veggies" — fared quite well on the opening night.
However, Albania's
hyper- sexu- alised act that also tried to incorporate a more traditional sound failed to impress, despite its topless beefy male dancers and thunder-and-lightning visuals.
Slovenia's funk schlager, Disko, performed by teen band LPS, was reminiscent of Eurovision's bygone era, but the retro pull was not strong enough for them to make it to the final.
Austria, with its distinctly 90s sound coupled with a DJ performance and all-black outfits, made it the biggest party song of the night, and its failure to attract enough votes was one of the surprises of the first semifinal.
Yet it was Norway's Sub-woolfer, a duo of brothers wearing yellow wolf masks with white teeth, black suits and white shirts, whose zany "Give That Wolf A Banana" might turn out to be this year's competition's biggest hit.
The competition continues on Thursday at 9 pm CET, with Sweden, Poland, and Serbia all expected to be among the final top 10 according to the bookmakers.