Luminato Festival 2025: This new ‘immersive experience' is a monstrosity on the waterfront
1.5 stars (out of 4)
By Architects of Air. Until June 22 at the Harbourfront Centre. luminatofestival.com
You would be forgiven for doing a double take as you approach 'Terceradix Luminarium,' a new immersive art installation on display at the Harbourfront Centre as part of the 2025 Luminato Festival.
It's billed as a 'cathedral of light' and a 'monumental walk-in sculpture.' But, in reality, it's neither of those things. Instead, it could be more aptly described from the outside as resembling a supersized cluster of viruses: grey, alien and complete with spike proteins projecting from spherical bodies.
Or an even better descriptor: a giant monstrosity on the waterfront.
Things are much the same as you step inside this inflatable castle on steroids. That is, of course, after shelling out the $20 admission fee.
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Its structure, created by the U.K. company Architects of Air, is comprised of curvilinear passageways, conjoining and diverging at odd angles. Walking through them, you feel like a blood cell, siphoned through a series of veins and arteries.
For a pneumatic installation, it's fitting that the structure's design explores ideas of expansion and contraction. The architecture, featuring pointed windows and intricate geometric patterns, also occasionally recalls both Gothic styles and Islamic art.
Cramped corridors give way to airy rooms with vaulted ceilings, wrapped around the perimeter with cosy alcoves (which you're free to sit in, as some visitors did, leaning their backs on the rounded exterior wall).
But overall, the pervasive mood is one of drabness. The predominant colour: a purgatorial grey. And the only source of light: those small, slim windows. Walk through some of the rooms, play with those bouncy walls and soon you'll want out.
When I visited 'Terceradix Luminarium,' it was during an evening that featured a musical performance. Violinists Daria Skibitskaya and Diane Kim led my group through the installation, all while playing an eclectic mix of short pieces, ranging from Simon and Garfunkel to Bach.
The pair are competent instrumentalists and their choice of repertoire, curated by National Ballet of Canada concertmaster Aaron Schwebel, is inspired. But it's hard to picture a worse performance venue than the entrails of an inflatable castle.
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Its acoustics warp the musicians' sound. That's even if you can hear them above the din of the generators, pumping air into the structure. (At one point, I was about to scream, 'Turn those damn things off already.' Then, I remembered that if we did, we'd probably all suffocate inside this humongous plastic balloon.)
Though Architects of Air has been creating structures like 'Terceradix Luminarium' for decades, their continued popularity (or even rise in popularity) points to the Instagrammification of immersive art. Indeed, when I visited, it seemed like almost every other guest around me dropped $20 just to snap a photo inside the inflatable castle.
Maybe they saw something inside this eyesore of an installation that I didn't. But for me, 'Terceradix Luminarium' is far from worthy of a spot on the 'gram.
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