Karen O and Danger Mouse have released a short video, An Encounter with Lux Prima – The Art of Collaboration, which documents the process for creating their multisensory art installation An Encounter With Lux Prima.
Over the course of 18 months, the two musicians and an award-winning crew came together to create a live art experience to accompany O and Mouse’s new collaborative album, Lux Prima, which was released in March. The exhibition then debuted in April during a sold-out run at Los Angeles’ Marciano Art Foundation, where high-profile celebrities like David Lynch, Brad Pitt, Jim Carrey, Spike Jonze, Chris Bosh, Ezra Miller, Nick Zinner and others attended.
In the new mini-documentary that was premiered by Variety, O and key members of the personnel — including creative designer Barnaby Clay, sound designer Ren Klyce, lighting designer Tobias Rylander and projection-mapping specialist Travis Threlkel — speak about the exhibition’s extended creation process. The interviews are paired behind-the-scenes footage, as well as video from the installment’s Los Angeles run.
Explained Klyce when asked about the thought process behind An Encounter With Lux Prima, “Fundamentally, at its roots, it’s about getting back to listening to music as a group of people. Nowadays, we have all this isolation. We never actually get together and listen to music anymore.”
Clay noted, “The creation of this whole idea and where it came from was we wanted to bring people together, we want to create some installation that is fully transportative. Ren took the music and the sound effects, our timeline, and started creating a 3D mix around the room. To hear the music like that was pretty extraordinary.” Later, he adds, “The idea of bringing people together and sharing in this experience, it’s nice to have an anchor and that’s what the rock does. Its surfaces and its beautiful contours add a dimension to the image, which immediately brings it alive and turns it into something special. It’s the totem that everyone is looking at, but at the same time, we want to take you out of that and all around the room and the space.”
Watch the brief mini-documentary below, which was executive produced by the Madison Square Garden Company and Like Mgmt and directed by Luisa Conlon and Max Knight:
