Touted as a “museum of art and technology”, an “immersive and sensory” space at $50 per entry opens in New York, designed by a contemporary Israeli designer expert in sound and light, for a new audience in the era of digital and social networks.
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The “Mercer Labs: Museum of Art and Technology”, all to the glory of the artist Roy Nachum – painter, sculptor, installer and designer of soundtracks, electronic music, light and laser shows, photos and videos – – has been accessible since January in the financial district of Wall Street, in lower Manhattan.
AFP
Nachum and his investor, New York real estate developer Michael Cayre, intend to make this former 3,300 m2 shopping center profitable from the official opening of the “museum” on March 28, after five years of studies and work for 35 million dollars, confide the two forty-year-olds to AFP.
Even for a city as expensive as New York, where cultural and entertainment options abound, the ticket price is astronomical: 52 dollars for an adult, 46 for a retiree or a young person, or almost 200 dollars for a family of four.
AFP
But for an hour of “ultimate experience”, defends Mr. Cayre.
Mercer Labs will certainly be exposed on Instagram or TikTok, as is the case with many places opened in recent years in Manhattan: panoramic views of “Summit One” of the Vanderbilt Tower all in glass and mirrors and from the The observatory and open-air terrace of the One World Trade Center and The Edge skyscrapers.
AFP
Rihanna album
Roy Nachum, born in Jerusalem in 1979 and based in New York for 20 years, is renowned in the design world for having illustrated the album “Anti” by superstar Rihanna in 2015.
On the cover of the record there is a shirtless child, blindfolded by a golden crown with braille inscriptions. An emblematic image of Nachum’s work, in homage to his visually impaired grandmother, which can be found everywhere at Mercer Labs: in photos, videos, paintings and statues that he created.
Rihanna and Roy Nachum in front of a photo of the cover of the singer’s “Anti” album.
AFP
The establishment intends to “redefine the museum experience in 15 interactive exhibition spaces, unique sound encounters and immersive installations, where the links between art and technology are revisited,” boasts the press kit.
In fact, while large traditional museums in the United States and Europe are wondering how to attract young people in the digital age and images on social networks, Mercer Labs is offering “a new approach “, says Mr. Nachum.
AFP
“In all museums, you cannot touch the works. Here we wanted people to be able to touch them, to interact with them,” explains the artist.
The visitor is thus drawn into a dark room where videos, photos and holograms created by Nachum are projected onto the walls, floor and ceiling, in a nightclub atmosphere with electronic music and clouds of water vapor.
AFP
In another room, for a “4D” sound immersion, you can lie down on a thick carpet, touch padded partitions and doze off under a blue light.
In the “dragon room,” 500,000 computer-controlled, projected LED micro-lamps depict mythological animals.
AFP
“We want to touch all the senses,” enthuses Roy Nachum for whom “technology is a tool, another pencil, another pen, another brush (…) in order to try to create something new” .
AFP
