{"id":607604,"date":"2026-04-16T08:33:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T08:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/607604\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T08:33:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T08:33:14","slug":"a-traveling-series-of-room-sized-dreamworlds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/607604\/","title":{"rendered":"a traveling series of room-sized dreamworlds"},"content":{"rendered":"

rooms built for the camera<\/p>\n

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The Olympus Perspective Playground<\/a>, a short-run and site-specific series of exhibitions, was traveling across Europe between 2013 \u2014 2017. The concept saw artists, designers, and technicians constructing sequences of immersive environments which photography<\/a> enthusiasts and professionals were invited to explore with a camera in hand.<\/p>\n

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Conceived by Studio Leigh Sachwitz and produced by flora&faunavisions (not The Storytelling Company), the interactive<\/a> project operates as a fully built system. Walls, lighting rigs, circulation paths, and signage are developed together with each installation, so the experience reads as one continuous spatial script. Visitors received an Olympus camera at entry, and from that point forward, every room is calibrated for use through the lens. They left with an SD card filled with images, though the more interesting takeaway was how each space taught them to look.<\/p>\n

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It began with early editions in Berlin in 2013 \u2014 2015, then expanded into a traveling format through cities like Hamburg, Amsterdam, Z\u00fcrich, Vienna, and Munich. It finally culminated in a larger-scale iteration at Palais de Tokyo in 2017 before returning to Kraftwerk Berlin later that year.<\/p>\n

\"Olympus
Spring Dragon Tail, Philip Beesley Studio<\/a>, 2014. image \u00a9 Ken Schluchtmann<\/a><\/p>\n

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a framework for dreaming in built space<\/p>\n

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The Olympus Perspective Playground is a practical exercise in constructing environments that hold imagination without drifting into abstraction. Each installation gives form to a specific visual condition, and each condition is tied to a spatial decision you can trace.<\/p>\n

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Take Numen\/For Use\u2019s Tube (see here<\/a>). A suspended, flexible tunnel stretches through the volume, made from tensile fabric that responds to body weight. As you climb inside, the structure compresses and expands, changing the curvature of the surface around you. The camera reads these shifts as a continuous field, removing edges and corners. The space becomes a soft envelope that records movement as distortion.<\/p>\n

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Liz West\u2019s Our Colour Reflection (see here<\/a>) works differently. Here, mirrored panels and suspended filters divide the room into angled fragments. Colored light passes through acrylic sheets and bounces across reflective surfaces, so every step produces a new alignment of hues. You can track the geometry in plan, yet the photograph flattens it into layered color fields. The room teaches how reflection can build depth without adding physical mass.<\/p>\n

\"Olympus
Our Colour Reflection, Liz West<\/a>,\u00a0 2016. image \u00a9 Klaus Bossemeyer<\/p>\n

\"Olympus
Tube, Numen\/For Use<\/a>, 2016. image \u00a9 Numen\/For Use<\/p>\n

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building conditions for imagination<\/p>\n

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In Vanishing Point by United Visual Artists (see here<\/a>), linear light elements extend across the room in strict alignment. The setup relies on perspective: from one position, the lines converge into a single point. Step aside, and the composition breaks apart. The installation makes viewpoint a structural component. It shows how a room can be built around a single optical condition, then held together through alignment.<\/p>\n

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Sven Meyer and Kim P\u00f6rksen\u2019s Sonic Water (see here<\/a>) introduces sound and liquid as active materials. Vibrations travel through water, creating visible patterns that shift in real time. The basin, lighting, and audio system are tuned together, so the surface becomes both instrument and image generator. Photographing it freezes a moment that the body experiences as continuous motion.<\/p>\n

\"Olympus
Vanishing Point, United Visual Artists<\/a>, 2013. image \u00a9 United Visual Artists<\/p>\n

\"Olympus
Sonic Water, Sven Meyer + Kim Porksen, 2013. image \u00a9 Elfenmaschine<\/p>\n

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the traveling series of little dreamworlds<\/p>\n

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Across its iterations, from early editions in Berlin to the expanded version at Palais de Tokyo, the Olympus Perspective Playground grows in scale and technical range. Later versions incorporate microscopy and endoscopy, extending the idea of spatial exploration beyond the human scale. You move from room-sized installations into images generated from inside materials or bodies, yet the logic stays consistent. Each environment is built around a condition that can be tested, recorded, and understood through use.<\/p>\n

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These installations do not ask for interpretation first. They lend a set of spatial tools and let you work through them. Mirrors, tensioned fabric, projected light, vibrating water. Each one is tuned so that a camera can translate the experience into an image that carries some of the space with it.<\/p>\n

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Imagination is framed as something you can prototype. Each room acts as a small environment where a single idea is pushed far enough to become tangible. Moving from one space to the next, visitors start to read the \u2018playground\u2019 as a series of tests. Some rely on geometry, others on material behavior, others on perception shaped by light.<\/p>\n

\"look
Submergence, Squidsoup<\/a>, 2016. image \u00a9 Ken Schluchtmann<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"rooms built for the camera \u00a0 The Olympus Perspective Playground, a short-run and site-specific series of exhibitions, was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,225803,75,11391,229267,10000],"class_list":{"0":"post-607604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-dreams-in-motion","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-interactive-installation","17":"tag-olympus-photography-playground","18":"tag-photography"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}