The spectacular iy_project returns to Eden Winter Festival in collaboration with Robert Del Naja & Dickinson, Nick Mulvey and Clayton Perry
25th November – 30th December
iy_project, the immersive light and sound installation created by leading light artist Chris Levine and EdenLAB returns for another record-breaking year this Christmas to Cornwall’s Eden Project and the annual Festival of Light and Sound. The collaboration was top of the Guardian’s guide to UK Christmas spectaculars in 2016 and this year promises to be even more impressive, with Eden’s award-winning Biomes transformed inside and out by an immersive aurora borealis of light and sound.
Robert Del Naja (Massive Attack) and Euan Dickinson, have worked alongside Mercury Prize-nominated singer-songwriter Nick Mulvey and top spatial audio artists and designers Dave Clayton and Marco Perry (Bjork) to create an original and entrancing soundscape. Levine’s previous collaboration with Del Naja & Dickinson and Marco Perry was premiered at the prestigious Dark Mofo festival in Hobart, Tasmania, in June to widespread public and critical acclaim with 300,000 people attending over 12 days. iy_project also staged headliner sound and light installations at Glastonbury 2016 and Wilderness festival, 2017.
Mulvey is a critically acclaimed singer-songwriter whose debut album First Mind received a Mercury Prize nomination. He released his second studio album, Wake Up Now, in September and is currently touring in the USA, having completed a sell-out run in the UK.
The distinctive ‘sound fields’, designed by Perry, are choreographed to resonate with Levine’s laser projections, creating an immersive three-dimensional sound experience which changes and modulates as visitors progress through each of the eight zones. The soundscape is generated by 70 loudspeakers arranged throughout the Mediterranean Biome, creating a multichannel 3D ambisonic object-based audio installation.
Inspired by Sacred Geometry, a powerful nine-point laser system will be positioned around the Biome and programmed by Levine to create a dazzling display of colour and dimensional light forms, designed to harmonise with both the original soundscape and Eden’s nature-inspired architecture. Outdoors, Levine’s powerful laser system, triangulated around the perimeter of Eden, will generate a dramatic laser canopy to the Eden Project site, casting geometric patterns onto Eden’s landscape and into the night sky.
iy_project defies categorisation. It is an experiential artwork which aims to remind us that we are a part of nature, not apart from it. This is progressive art that celebrates the wonder of life on Earth and our connection to it.