Es Devlin, teamLab, James Turrell to Inaugurate the Superblue Miami Experiential Art Space

Superblue, the groundbreaking new enterprise dedicated to producing, presenting, and engaging audiences with experiential art, launches its first venue in Miami on December 22 with Every Wall Is a Door, showcasing dynamic large-scale installations created by three of the world’s leading experiential artists. The inaugural program features the debut of a new immersive environment by Es Devlin, a transcendent digital experience created by teamLab, and an enveloping light-based Ganzfeld work by James Turrell, all on long-term view at least through 2022. Representing artists working across the spectrum of experiential art, Superblue Miami’s opening installations offer visitors an unparalleled opportunity to be transported to an array of new worlds in a single visit.

“The artists inaugurating Superblue’s first experiential art center offer a glimpse into the breadth of the experiential art movement and the extraordinary possibilities for the public to engage with and activate these kinds of works,” said Superblue Cofounder and Chief Executive Officer Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst. “Each of these artists provokes us to see our relationship to the world and each other in completely new ways—from James Turrell’s work with light and space, to Es Devlin’s performative and multi-disciplinary practice, to teamLab, a collective that has continuously sought to transcend boundaries of perception through innovations in technology. Collectively they reflect the arc of experiential art as a movement and the remarkable ways that artists are innovating with emerging mediums and placing audiences at the center of their work. We’re looking forward to opening our doors this December and welcoming the public to become a part of the amazing new worlds these artists create.”

Located in the Allapattah neighborhood directly across from the Rubell Museum, Superblue Miami transforms an unused 50,000 square foot industrial building into a centrally located cultural resource for the South Florida community and visitors to the region. Featuring more than 30,000 square feet of flexible installation space, Superblue Miami was specifically conceived for the presentation of large-scale works that immerse and engage visitors as part of the art itself. The venue also includes a 5,000-square-foot flexible programming and events space to support Superblue’s robust year-round program of talks, performances, workshops, family programs, as well as event rentals; a shop featuring artist-inspired items; and an outdoor cafe.

“Not only does Superblue Miami add a new dimension to the arts and culture landscape in our region, but it has been conceived as a cultural hub that will be deeply rooted in and integrated with the community,” said Shantelle Rodriguez, Director of Superblue Miami. “In planning our launch and year-round program, it’s been very exciting to collaborate with local cultural and civic groups and begin the process of forging meaningful partnerships. Our goal is to create resources, events, and other programs that support our community, and bring to the fore the pressing issues and perspectives that the artists engage with through their work.”

EVERY WALL IS A DOOR inaugural installations include:

Es Devlin: Forest of Us
Created for debut at Superblue Miami, Es Devlin’s Forest of Us is a multi-faceted immersive environment that takes visitors on a journey rooted in the human respiratory process. Incorporating video, mirrored surfaces, and other sculptural and performative elements, the work is comprised of a massive mirrored maze that resembles bronchial structures and a short
film that depicts the mathematics of human respiration and the geometry of trees. Visitors must navigate the maze’s pathways, with its mirrored walls reflecting every turn. From inside the maze’s corridors, the full expanse of its structure is partially visible. Only when visitors emerge from its interior and step out onto promontories, which are situated within a body of water, is the maze’s complete and anatomical shape suddenly revealed. Reflective of Devlin’s large-scale
performative sculptures and environments that explore human identity and perspective, the work illustrates the similarities between the networks within our bodies and in nature, as well as the contrast between individual and collective viewpoints.
In addition to the on-site installation, a tree-planting project to support reforestation in the Amazon is being developed in the context of the work. This extension underscores the mechanical and geometric similarities between trees and the human respiratory system as seen in the Superblue installation. It also emphasizes humanity’s reliance on trees for breathable air and the inextricable connection between human existence and deforestation – a primary contributor to climate change, which is a pressing issue in Miami.

teamLab: Between Life and Non-Life
Bringing together new and recent projects by teamLab in one, all-encompassing experience, this suite of interconnected artworks takes audiences on an exploration of the ambiguity between living and non-living states of being and the relationship between humanity and the natural world. The installation is the culmination of the collaborative practice of teamLab, an interdisciplinary collective of artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians, and architects that aims to transcend boundaries of perception, demonstrate the continuity of time, and explore the relationship between the self and the world. Many works shift according to audience interactions within them and with surrounding works, resulting in one-time-only visual effects that can never be replicated. This approach casts visitors and their relationship to one another as integral to the ultimate form of the work – underscoring their collective presence as a positive means of creation and serving as a metaphor for the integrated systems of nature itself, where distinctive parts interact to become a unified whole. The installation includes:

• Life Survives by the Power of Life, a new 8K single channel monitor work that renders the Japanese character for life, 生 (sei), in three-dimensional space to express the depth, speed, and power of the brushstroke. This “spatial calligraphy” is a form which teamLab has explored since its founding. The work shifts between this threedimensional rendering and a flattened, two-dimensional version of the character to reflect the indivisible state of the self and nature and the reality that existences that appear to be distinct are actually part of a single whole.
• Universe of Water Particles, Transcending Boundaries, a responsive, interactive installation in which visitors are surrounded by a digital continuum of water particles that appear flattened in what teamLab calls “ultrasubjective space.” Visitors transform and obstruct the flow of the water as they progress through the installation and as water
  moves around the perimeters of their bodies. The flow of the waterfall also influences the Flowers and People, Cannot be Controlled but Live Together installation, causing the flowers in the latter to scatter.
• Flowers and People, Cannot be Controlled but Live Together – Transcending Boundaries, A Whole Year per Hour and Proliferating Immense Life, A Whole Year per Year, computer-generated, real-time renderings of a seasonal year of flowers growing, blossoming, withering, and decaying – a cycle which repeats itself in perpetuity. As visitors move through the installations, they impact the abundance and decay of the flowers based on their interactions with their surroundings. Flowers that are stepped on result in scattered petals, and they wither and die quickly; flowers that are observed in stillness grow abundantly – reflecting the importance of balance between humanity and nature and uncertainty about how much of the ecosystem is a result of natural processes versus human interaction. In Flowers and People, Cannot be Controlled but Live Together, a year’s worth of seasonal flowers blossoms and scatters over a period of one hour, whereas the flowers in Proliferating Immense Life bloom and change with the seasons in real time.

James Turrell: Ganzfeld. Inspiring decades of artists and foregrounding the experiential art movement, James Turrell’s
Ganzfeld work examines the effects of light and space on the mechanics of vision as well as conscious and unconscious modes of seeing. Taking its name from the German phrase for “complete field,” the large-scale installation immerses visitors in a room of monochrome lighting, in which the dimensions of space are sensed before light moves to a complete dissolve. With no object on which to focus their vision, visitors experience a change in depth perception and possibly a feeling of disorientation. Emblematic of the visionary artist’s investigation of perceptual phenomena through the exploration of light, volume, and scale, Ganzfeld works challenge viewers’ mechanisms of perception.

VISITING SUPERBLUE MIAMI
Located close to downtown Miami, just blocks from Interstates 95 and 195 and the Miami Metrorail, which links with the inter-city Brightline trainlines, Superblue Miami is easily accessible to a wide range of audiences across the South Florida region, as well as national and international visitors to the area.

Timed ticketing, controlled visitor capacity and a single-direction flow though the installations are key to achieving the intended experience of each work and support a socially-distanced visit. Tickets start at $30 and will be available this fall. For advance ticketing information, sign up for alerts at superblue.com/about. 

For more information about Superblue, visit superblue.com or follow @superblue.art on Instagram.