Unloomed light show at Amstel Park

Unloomed is a light installation, which can be viewed from a safe distance outdoors at Amstel Park in Amsterdam.

Take a walk through Amstel Park and you’ll come across the glowing glasshouse. Inside is a sophisticated exhibition space from which art has been radiating since mid-January out over the park, illuminating tree trunks, rhododendrons, lawns and gravel paths. As a visitor you can, preferably as darkness sets in, immerse yourself in a completely different reality, a reality that consists of spatial laser light and sounds.

A choreography of lights

Its full title is "Unloomed #1: An Installation for Strings and Certain Sketchy Objects of String Theory". If you look through the glass, you actually get to see a unique light choreography in three parts inside the structure. Laser light (green, blue, sometimes purple) is passed along 1.001 strings.

To the viewer, this light might at first seem completely random and always changing. But if you take a closer look, you will see that there is a system: the strings are attached to the ceiling and wooden beams on the floor. The light travels between them in distinct episodes.

Sometimes the light moves subtly, in pulsating sequences. At other times, the light enters into lightning-like lines that run diagonally to each other, are placed parallel or form intersections. It's like watching a sped-up chase scene in a labyrinth of highways. Unloomed is the fourth production by the collective known as The Warp at the glasshouse in Amstel Park.

Attend in person or via streaming

Go wandering alone or with a friend to experience contemporary art in person. The other alternative is to check it out via streaming online. Most art events are recommended in person, however, Unloomed is just as good in its online version.

Here's why: If you go in person, you see everything strictly from outside and can only hear the audio softly via speakers mounted on the facades of the glasshouse. The sound from those microphones is nothing compared to that from the live stream. Via streaming, you can hear and see how strings sound when they are set in motion and you get to see what's happening on the inside.

Thumb photo: Senna Leezenberg