A GLORIOUS lets visitors experience what it might be like to be sucked into a black hole, but without becoming human spaghetti.
The Distortions in Spacetime simulation was created by Marshmallow Laser Feast. The aim, says Barney Steel from the design studio, is “to take people out of their bodies and put them in a space where they feel like they’re floating”.
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The installation’s 10-square-metre room feels like deep space thanks to its completely mirrored surfaces. The only light source is a panoramic screen, so when this is black, the room becomes deeply dark.
Images on the screen then take visitors on a journey into a black hole. Approaching the event horizon, shapes distort and colours intensify. Extreme lensing effects then transport viewers on a psychedelic ride towards a big squeeze.
The simulation was commissioned by the Manchester Science Festival in the UK, where the installation recently sucked in its first victims. It was created with advice from Matthew Allen, an astrophysicist at Cardiff University, UK. Steel hopes to arrange more showings in the UK and elsewhere soon.
Photographer
Barney Steel, Marshmallow Laser Feast
This article appeared in print under the headline “Help, I’m in a black hole!”
