In my adult life I cannot remember ever being mesmerised by something. I appreciate the beauty of art and of nature, but cannot recall ever being consumed by what is before me in the way children often are – wide eyed and mesmerised as they take in the world for the first time.

This is exactly how I felt as I stepped inside Ron Arad’s Curtain Call on Monday while visiting the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm Road, Camden.

The immersive installation that regressed me into childhood wonder is a floor to ceiling curtain created from 5,600 silicon rods that surround you in an 18 diameter circle and is part of the Roundhouse 50th anniversary celebrations.

“Walk in, penetrate, cross the moving images to get inside the cylinder. You’ll be engulfed by images –a captive, but also a creator. It’s amazing what exciting things happen on both sides of the curtain” says the artist himself.

As I walk into the circular main space of the Roundhouse, a place from which I have watched many bands perform as well as abstract dance and musical productions and artist Andrew Logan’s Alternative Miss World, the space felt alien to me as Curtain Call swamped the room. I stop to take a photo and look up to discover everybody has disappeared – disappeared inside that is. I slip inside the swishing silicon and I am in awe.

The curtain is a canvas for short films by various artists, and has been, since it debuted in 2011. Returning artists include Mat Colishaw, Babis Alexiadis, David Shrigley, Ori Gersht, Christian Marclay, Greenaway & Greenaway, Gabriel & Shira Klasmer and SDNA and there are new works this year from Kutiman, Marshmallow Laser Feast and Universal Everything, The first, my favourite, is a fast-moving film of huge architectural images with industrial groaning blasting from the spectacular surround sound.

Other personal favourites of mine include footage of an alien like jungle of rotting flowers, several vases of flowers that shatter one by one, which you follow by sight and sound before watching and listening to it in reverse, and then The Fat Girl Gets a Haircut & Other Stories, a film of beautifully drawn images.

After the first film one person inside the curtained cage sits down – apparently much to everybody else’s relief as one-by-one we all follow suit. As the films go on, combining to last approximately one hour and 20 minutes, we all make ourselves more and more comfortable as some move between the silicon and others lie down completely.

When the final work comes to an end the cycle starts again and I would have happily sat there all day watching over and over if it had not meant returning to a parking ticket. If only I had got the bus.

Roundhouse, Chalk Farm Road, NW1 8EH, until Monday, August 29, 12pm to 8pm, excludes Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturday 20 August. On August 14, there will also be a special interactive event KIMA. Details: 0300 6789 222