LUX is a mesmerising audio-visual art exhibition under the streets of London under the brutalist building 180 The Strand. It showcases 13 different pieces of work by 12 different artists who blend virtual and physical art into fascinating and immersive compositions.

Lux, meaning ‘light’ in Latin, attempts to display the innovative use of light as a form of media, and is very successful in doing so. As soon as you enter the subterranean environment, you are greeted with a long tunnel illuminated with a distinct red colour, and this is the first part of Es Devlin’s ‘BLUESKYWHITE’. As you walk through you can hear a voice-over of an extract from Lord Byron’s poem ‘Darkness’, which was written in 1816, otherwise known as the ‘year without summer’ as volcanic ash from the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia the previous year had covered part the of sky. The second part of Devlin’s piece is pictured above - it reflects on modern geo engineering proposals that particles can be suspended in the air to dim the sun and therefore have a cooling effect on the Earth, but might also turn the blue sky white, from which the installation gets its name. 

Es Devlin said on a video by FACTmagazine: “When I read about this, I wanted an audience or a viewer to feel in their gut what I felt when I read those words, that this might be a way to solve the climate crisis but no more blue sky.”

Other popular installations included ‘Starry Beach’ by a’strict, which let the audience undergo a surreal experience which displayed bright waves that looked like a starry night, or Carsten Nicolai’s ‘unicolor’ which examines forms of colour perception. 

However, LUX is not limited to AI driven artworks, as it also features Julianknxx’s ‘Black Corporeal’, a virtual choir performance exploring the nature of breathing as an action that symbolises how we live individually and together.

Overall, LUX was an incredibly interesting experience which I highly recommend to anyone interested by this type of art, or perhaps if you are looking to find a location for a photogenic location for your next Instagram post. 

 

The exhibition runs until the 18th of December and tickets can be found at: https://www.180thestrand.com

Other exhibitions are also being run at 180 The Strand such as The French Dispatch Exhibition and the Bronze Garden - more information can be found following the link above.