Dumbo, Brooklyn was all a bustle this past weekend with the activity of the CreatorsProject, an arts and technology initiative formed to support “visionary artists, musicians, and filmmakers who are using technology to push the bounds of creative expression.” The gathering swallowed the historic neighborhood, planting visual artworks (by the likes of United Visual Artists, and David Bowie + Mick Rock + Barney Clay, among many others) in both indoor as well as outdoor venues and screening avant-garde film around the clock. The whole experience throbbed to a soundtrack created by bands like John Maus, Emicida, and Yuksek in the earthy ruins of the old Tobacco Warehouse, as well as Florence + the Machine, Four Tet, and others blasting their wares from the cavernous, illuminated Archway under the Manhattan Bridge.

 
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I caught up with Alejandra Lillo, architect and co-founder with Bryan Flaig of Los Angeles-based design firm Undisclosable. Lillo was hanging out at the installation Undisclosable helped realize, along with filmmaker Jonathan Glazer and J. Spaceman of the band Spiritualized. It occupies an old warehouse that, until recently, housed Jane’s Carousel (which was just relocated to Jean Nouvel’s acrylic glass pavilion just blocks away on the waterfront). Named a Physical Manifestation of “Ladies and Gentlemen, We are Floating in Space,” the installation consists of a cathedrallike enclosure that has been carved out of the old warehouse with an elevated stage deck and walls made of stage flats covered with black Duvateen. Five apertures animate the upper reaches of the darkened space, emitting an ethereal, white glow, produced by MoleBeam projectors that are located behind the scenes and pump shafts of intense light up through long, reflective fiberglass fabric sleeves. Inside this sort of chapel, the Spiritualized piece, remixed by Glazer, winds about viewers, who, as they step into the various blocks of light, experience the intensity of different tracks that are singled out and emphasized. It was quite something to watch visitor after visitor enter through the fog of the hazers and, one by one, lie down to soak it in.


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