Today, TRUST, a 30-minute immersive experimental digital art experience, opens at ARTECHOUSE — the first innovative arts organization dedicated to the intersection of art, science, and technology. TRUST was created in collaboration with fuse*, a multidisciplinary Italian studio working with emerging technology to interpret the complexity of human and natural phenomena. The organization aims to push past societally accepted limits, spur empathy, and create work inspired by never-before-seen connections between light, space, sound, and movement.
Through data examination, TRUST observes how historical events have impacted society’s ability to trust and how this could potentially evolve in the future. The exhibition visually displays historical news and blockchain data points, encircling visitors from all angles in its alluring and fragmented interpretation of grid street plans, graphs, and interconnected floating hands. Much of TRUST’s visuals are monochrome — homing in on the exhibition’s dual nature of presenting real-world situations through the lens of the digital world. TRUST highlights how the presence or absence of trust can shift the perception of our individual realities, giving new meaning to what it means to live in the 21st century.
“In conceiving our spaces our goal has always been to create a technological canvas capable of empowering and inspiring artists to push the limits of creative innovation,” Sandro Kereselidze, ARTECHOUSE Founder & Chief Creative Officer, said. “I am thrilled that our capabilities of real-time data visualizations are enabling the creative vision of fuse* studio in telling the story ofTRUST. This new commission is an exciting opportunity to not only explore possibilities within the field of data-driven art but to also examine up close ways in which our seemingly personal feelings of trust can affect the entire world and have far-reaching implications.”
The exhibition delves into three unique chapters that take viewers on a metaphorical journey through time and space. For the Past, the exhibition is based on information from a historical data archive. In the Present, this data is processed in real-time to create “living art” — a prime example being the fluctuations of the show’s point clouds, which represent the perception of how the news’ magnitude confuses reality. Comprising this section are 750,000 tweets selected from 500 million messages archived during the pandemic, all of which contain the word “trust.” Rounding off the exhibition is the Future, featuring predictions of trust moving forward. To do so, fuse* trained a recurrent neural network to make forecasts through analyzing the combination of financial data in relation to the index of confidence, generating infinite possible evolutions of trust.
Courtesy of Artechouse/Max Rykov
Through the exhibition, the fuse* collective aims “to offer viewers an opportunity to think about the meaning of ‘trust’ and convey our belief that at any time, we have the option to choose whether to be guided by fear and anger or to have the courage to trigger change. Our choices define our future.”
As TRUST plays in the background, visitors can also relax and enjoy specialty-made cocktails from the XR bar. Example cocktails include fuse*, made from mezcal, lime, chipotle, black lava salt, and grapefruit; and Future, featuring reposado tequila, Campari, sweet vermouth, and agave. Other options available are a selection of Georgian wines and beers. Each drink is powered by the ARTECHOUSE app, featuring augmented reality work inspired by the exhibition.
Courtesy of Artechouse/Max Rykov
TRUST will run until May 30, 2022. The exhibition will be on view to the public seven days a week from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Single and group tickets can be reserved online, priced at $25 for adults, $17 for children aged 4-15, and free for all under the age of 4. Students, senior citizens, military, and first responders pay $20 while NY and NJ residents can have $5 taken off their tickets Monday-Friday.
Untapped New York Insiders are invited to experience Trust with fuse* at ARTECHOUSE for free on February 23rd, and March 1st at 6 p.m. Sign up now because there are only 10 spots available on each date. If you’re not already an insider, register now and get your first month free with code JOINUS.
Irene Madrigal is a sophomore at Barnard College intending on majoring in English and History with a minor in Spanish. As a native New Yorker, she can be found guiding her friends across the city and
