Olafur Eliasson's "360 Room for All Colours"

A circular room with a wall of changing screen lights. It changed in different colours and was supposed to make us feel like witnessing evolving landscapes.

I had a different experience. For me, it felt like I was inside an empty UFO, or inside an empty room inside a space station floating somewhere in space. I felt like I was in a 2001: A Space Odyssey. That was when it emitted white light.

Then it turned red. A dark room, a horror movie. The room felt evil. The guy in the striped shirt looked suddenly
similar to Freddy Kruger. The blonde girl, on the other side of the room suddenly looked like Carrie. My mood was fear.

Then it turned blue - underwater, drowning, panic.

Then it changed into the lighter, less severe colours. I felt calm again. That thing was like a mood generator or a teleporter.

Photos from: Red, Blue, White

Olafur Eliasson's "Room for One Colour"

It's basically an empty room bathed in bright yellow light. Like Beauty it's a very simple concept but being inside that room was an experience I cannot quite describe. Or words may have failed me this time.

You stand in the middle of the room and look around, all you see is yellow. It's like being sucked inside the sun. My friend described it like being inside a tanning salon.

You're deprived of seeing other colours other than yellow and black. It's almost fascist in a way, taking away your right to see naturally.

We didn't spend too much time in the room as the light was suffocating and became increasingly unbearable it was almost torture. Like a gas chamber but with light. We were helpless in there and my primal instinct that triggered was: Get out.

Photos from:1, 2, 3

Olafur Eliasson's "Beauty"

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney recently showcased Olafur Eliasson's past works and I was lucky enough to pay a visit. I'll be doing a series of posts focusing on some of the pieces I saw.

The works included the hypnotic and dreamlike "Beauty", a light sculpture/installation consisting of a spotlight shone on a slow descending spray of fine mist. Think of the Northern Lights. The piece creates haunting images of the supernatural, the light becoming representations of the spirit and the soul, the faint colours of the rainbow showing the diversity of the people whose the spirits once inhabited.

But then you stand on the other side of the room, and we lose all of that, instead we see more of the mist, the light is more white and the black more black. Feels like being underneath a floating waterfall somewhere in space.

Then you start interacting with the mist. You walk underneath it and instant flashback to childhood - playing soccer during an autum drizzle. Carwashing for pocket money. Waiting for mum to pick you up at school because you forgot your umbrella at home.

This is one of my favourites, because it feels so surreal yet real at the same time. It's nature turned on its head, becoming man-made. Humans playing Mother Nature.

It's such a simple idea yet an ingenious one.

Pictures from : 1