Sydney on 26 May, running until 16 July before touring the world.After three years of intense preparation, the highly-anticipated immersive journey of light and sound known as Dark Spectrum is set to debut in Australia’s largest festival, Vivid Sydney. The first of its kind in the world, Dark Spectrum aims to take visitors on a intense exploration of the human experience, featuring themes such as separation, pressure, reflection and revelation, all represented by individual colours of light which explode within eight unique spaces.
Incorporating state-of-the-art technology such as music, robotics, and laser systems, visitors will be able to step inside each artwork as part of a six-week long display. As they wander through the tunnels, visitors will be treated to a five-minute soundtrack in each space, accompanied by a constantly evolving atmosphere, resulting in an overload of light and sound that will trigger unique emotions with every transition.
The experience will be highly immersive, with restricted visitor groups entering the tunnels in order to avoid overcrowding. Some portions of the tunnels, originally built in the 1930s as part of Wynyard Station’s unused Platforms 1 and 2, have never before been open to the public, adding an extra layer of exclusivity to the already highly-anticipated event.
As visitors move from one tunnel to the next, they will enter new colours of the spectrum, each with its own unique energy, music, and visual effects.
Each room in the display is thematically arranged to represent different aspects of the human experience. For example, the first room, titled “Separation”, features overhead lights which morph and contort as the music transforms the tunnel from an industrial space to a borderless room of dazzling lasers. In the second room, titled “Constriction”, the red hue transforms the tunnel into what feels like a constricting maze, with neon and illuminated cabling pulsing and animating around visitors. In contrast, the fifth room, “Reflection”, uses green laser beams to create a hazy atmosphere that encourages personal introspection.
The sixth room, known as “Unfamiliar”, is the largest of the display, and features five humanoid robots that create an unsettling feeling of the unknown as they come to life, captivating visitors with their uncannily familiar expressions and movements. Meanwhile, visitors are invited to interact with the seventh room, titled “Interaction”, where thousands of magenta hanging vines adorn the ceiling and respond to interaction and touch from visitors.
Finally, in the eighth and final room, visitors are treated to a full spectrum of colour in the form of hundreds of bright beams of moving light, showcasing every colour of the spectrum to produce waves of rainbows that fill the air around visitors. After journeying through the Dark Spectrum, visitors can walk towards the light and out of the tunnels, hopefully feeling uplifted and reminded that darkness is necessary to recognise and appreciate the light.
Dark Spectrum is a collaboration between Vivid Sydney, Sony Music, Mandylights, and Culture Creative, and is set to premiere on May 26th, running until July 16th before touring the world.