ARTECHOUSE’s “Twilight Zone: Hidden Wonders of the Ocean,” an immersive digital exhibition about the ocean’s twilight zone made with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is open in the 100-year-old former boiler room beneath Chelsea Market at 439 W. 15th Street. It opened to the public September 19, amNewYork reported.
The centerpiece is a 24-minute cinematic film about the nightly migration of twilight zone creatures from the deep toward the surface to feed and back down again, the largest animal migration on the planet. Around it are seven interactive installations and six XR activations: visitors navigate the depths through the eyes of the Mesobot, a deep-sea robot, in a journey based on the illustrated book “Where the Weird Things Are”; turn sound into images of the creatures using sonar; run eDNA analysis to see how much life lives at those depths; and explore an interactive aquarium and bioluminescence installations. The score is an original composition by Mehmet Ünal of Tilde Sound Art.
“The 24-hour phenomenon is shrunk into a 24-minute experience thanks to our artists,” Chloe Myers, ARTECHOUSE’s director of visitor experience, told amNewYork. The studio’s artists met weekly with Woods Hole scientists while making the exhibition, she said.
The twilight zone helps keep the climate cool and is a critical food source for many animals, including whales, sharks and fisheries such as swordfish and tuna. Myers told amNewYork that the migrating organisms are part of the ocean’s carbon pump, consuming 25 to 30 percent of human-emitted carbon in the atmosphere as they feed, carbon that then stays locked in marine snow at the bottom of the ocean for hundreds of years.
Each visit starts in a small dark room with a guided introduction from the visitor team, then opens into the immersion gallery, beginning with a panoramic portal into real Woods Hole footage, Myers said.
Tickets are available at artechouse.com.
Featured image: Courtesy artechouse.com
