oPTIK
Touring Manager: Creos
Locations: Chicago, IL, USA; Ottawa, CA; Toronto, CA; Montreal, CA; New York, NY USA; Houston, TX USA; Grand Rapids, MI USA;
Collaborators: INIT, CREOS, Serge Maheu
Services: Design, Fabrication Management
Optik is an interactive touring installation that allows the user to manipulate the work, the space, and the surrounding context in various ways. The installation evokes communal connection by creating shared play experiences. Sparking an ever-changing playful atmosphere within a space by providing an open-ended platform for users to engage with light, sound, and movement.
The 6-foot gyroscope-like forms enable the user to rotate the segments to create new ever-changing opportunities that reflect the sun and surrounding context during the day and refract the internal up lighting at night. As the audience rotates each unit, they create their own endless cascade of colors within the space.
The experience is raised to another level as sound joins in the rhythmical effort, turning each unit into a different musical instrument. As the work is rotated a different note is played at every fifteen-degree rotation. Through movement and reflection of light, each of these colorful units encourages the public to engage with another unit and other people within the space, sparking spontaneous conversations, dance parties, jam sessions, and light shows.
“People were playing with Optik within minutes of it being installed on-site.”
The work becomes more than just a photogenic monument within a space and becomes a communal hub for social connection. Optik showcases the value of play within our everyday spaces and how it can be utilized to create more inclusive, social, and equitable spaces and places.
