In the digital age, an “immersive and sensory museum” opens in NY

NY. Presented as a “museum of art and technology”, an “immersive and sensory” space opens in New York at $50 a ticket, conceived by a contemporary Israeli designer expert in sounds and lights, for a new audience in the age of digital technology and social networks.

The “Mercer Labs: Museum of Art and Technology”, by artist Roy Nachum – painter, sculptor, installer and creator of soundtracks, electronic music, light games, lasers, photos and videos -, opened its doors in January in the neighborhood Wall Street financier in southern Manhattan.

Nachum and his investor, New York real estate developer Michael Cayre, want to make an old 3,300 m2 shopping center profitable from the official opening of the “museum” on March 28, after five years of studies and work for 35 million dollars, the two men indicated to the Afp.

Even for a city as expensive as New York, with its wide cultural and entertainment offering, the price of admission is astronomical: 52 dollars per adult, 46 for a retired person or a young person, that is, about 200 dollars for a family of four people.

But it’s for an hour of “ultimate experience,” Cayre guarantees.

El Mercer Labs is sure to appear on Instagram or TikTok, as it has with many places opened in Manhattan in recent years, with panoramic views from the glass-and-mirrored “Summit One” of the Vanderbilt Tower, or from the observatory and terrace at outdoors of the One World Trade Center and The Edge skyscrapers.

Rihanna album

Roy Nachum, born in Jerusalem in 1979 and who has lived in New York since he was 20, has established his reputation in the field of design for having illustrated the 2015 album Anti by star Rihanna.

On the cover of the album a shirtless boy appears, blindfolded by a golden crown with inscriptions in Braille. An emblematic image of Nachum’s work, in homage to his visually impaired grandmother, which is omnipresent at Mercer Labs: in photos, videos, statues and paintings created by the artist.

The place aims to “redefine the museum experience in 15 interactive exhibition spaces, unique sound encounters and immersive installations, where the links between art and technology are revisited,” says the press dossier.

In fact, while large traditional museums in the United States and Europe try to attract younger audiences in the age of digital and social media, Mercer Labs proposes “a new approach,” according to Nachum.

“In all museums, you cannot touch the works. We want people here to be able to touch them, to interact with them,” he explains.

The visitor is also drawn into a dark room where videos, photos and holograms created by Nachum are projected on the walls, floor and ceiling, in a nightclub atmosphere with electronic music and clouds of steam.

In another room, for a “4D” sound immersion, visitors can lie down on a thick rug, touch the padded partitions and sleep under a blue light.

In the so-called “dragon chamber”, 500 thousand micro LED lights projected and controlled by a computer bring mythological animals to life.

“We want to touch all the senses,” says enthusiastically Nachum, for whom “technology is a tool, another pencil, another pen, another brush (…) to try to create something new.”