The word immersive is perhaps overused these days – but when you’re inside a large room surrounded by giant nightmarish monsters walking along the walls, or seeing waves of a terrifying storm crash around you, it’s hard not to choose that “go-to” expression.
Frameless, is a permanent immersive art exhibition located at Marble Arch in London. While not the most pleasant part of the city, it is worth heading there to experience the magical world inside its door. Opened in late 202, it’s located on the site of a retired Odeon cinema. Its large rooms are now divided up into four art galleries showing famous artworks reimagined for the 21st century. Instead of static objects you simply look at, the images are animated and projected onto the walls, ceiling and floors around you, accompanied by music. Using cutting-edge technology and sound it’s hard not to be drawn into the experience, no matter your age or your knowledge of art.
Downstairs, before you go in, there’s a bar for food and drink, and as this was an evening Lates” session, which allows only over 18s – you can bring in drinks with you as you walk around.
Each of the four rooms has a different style and theme. The first room we went into was called “Beyond Reality”, where surrealist images such as the famous melting clocks from Dali and nightmarish Max Ernst images meet The Scream by Edvard Munch. Taking a seat to take in the images I quickly found myself relaxed, letting the images wash over me.
In the next room, “Colour in Motion”, impressionist art strokes come alive. You’re invited to interact with the paintings – the brush strokes of Van Gogh’s famous self-portrait break up onto the floor and these move about as you “kick” them, before reforming into The Garden at Bougival by Morisot. Van Gogh’s Starry Night over the Rhone also makes an appearance in this room.
Next, we made our way into “The Art of Abstraction”, where the squares and circles of the cubists, such as Klint and Kandinsky, are set to rhythmic jazz music. This reminded me of a special moment, when, once, at a dinner party, one lovely chap commented on the framed picture of Kandisky’s Yellow, Red, Blue that we had on the wall, observing, out loud, that it was the only thing of interest in the whole place. It was so breathtakingly rude of him that we still laugh about it over 20 years later. As this artwork broke up and was reflected on the multiple see-through walls in this room, I did find myself wondering what our pretentious guest, (whose name I am pleased to have long forgotten), would have made of this modern take on it.
In the final room, “The World Around Us”, among the images we are transported to a courtyard in Venice, courtesy of Canaletto, we see The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, standing astride a rock looking into the misty view, and we are splashed by the crashing waves of the terrifying storm in Rembrandt’s Christ in the Storm on the Late of Galilee. And then, in my favourite part of the entire exhibition, Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night comes spectacularly alive, complete with swirling stars, comets flying overhead and the lights of the village waking up in front of us. It’s quite beautiful.
If you’d like to know a bit more about the technical side, much of the work has been done by Cinensite, a company that is known for its visual effects for movies such as Avengers: Infinity War, Spectre, and Fantastic Beasts, among many others. This video gives an insight into the process of how it adapted Rembrandt’s Christ in the Storm on the Late of Galilee into an immersive 3D experience. It describes the challenge of animating everything in a way that matches the visual language of the artist.
While it’s not an inexpensive trip, Frameless is a tremendous – and yes, highly immersive, experience that should be part of your itinerary if you’re visiting London and, thanks to recent additions, worth returning to even if you’ve been before.
