You Can Now Have a Multisensory Experience of a Yayoi Kusama Infinity Room Online, Thanks to the Broad’s ‘Infinity Drone’

Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Room—The Souls of
Millions of Light Years Away (2013) is the most popular
attraction at the Broad in Los Angeles, drawing
almost 2 million viewers since the museum opened in September
2015.

But the twinkling lights of the Japanese artist’s mirrored
abyss, along with museums across the country, have been dark
since March 13.

Thankfully, the museum has unveiled a new way to experience the
artwork online.

Organized by Ed Patuto, the museum’s director of audience
engagement, and Darin Klein, associate director of events and
programs, a new Instagram TV series pairs footage of Kusama’s
starry universe with musical selections by LA sound artists and
musicians.

The first edition of the project, featuring music by Geneva
Skeen, debuted on Monday.

“Geneva’s music has an ethereal quality and evokes the spiritual
aspects of infinity,” Patuto told Artnet News in an email. Moving
forward, the project, which aims to bring out the spiritual side of
communing with eternity in an Infinity Roomm will feature music
drawn from a variety of genres including drone, electronic,
ambient, and pop music.

“People experience spirituality in many different ways,” Patuto
said. “By bringing in a variety of musical approaches, we hope to
provide a range of ways to delve into aspects of Kusama’s
work.”

Each week throughout the closure, the museum will release a new
track, set to existing footage of the Infinity Room.

“People experience spirituality or practice contemplation in
many different ways,” Patuto added. “By bringing in a variety of
musical approaches, we hope to provide a range of ways to delve
into aspects of Kusama’s work.”

The project, which is called “Infinite Drone,” is just one of
the ways the Broad is adapting its programming to the current
health situation; it is also asking local poets to write verses
inspired by works in the collection for another project titled
“Interplay: Poetry and Art.”

“The success of the Broad’s online programming demonstrates that
our audience appreciates new ways to experience artworks other than
through traditional didactic engagement,” Patuto said.

It’s no surprise that people at home would welcome the
opportunity to escape into one of Kusama’s immersive
artworks. The Infinity Rooms often resonate with people,
and Kusama’s blockbuster
exhibitions—including one that traveled to the
Broad—have sold out and
drawn huge lines
around the world.

But the experience is fundamentally about being physically
present in the space (and being able to document it in
Instagram-ready photographs). The full effect doesn’t exactly
translate to a video shot from a single vantage point.

But there are some advantages to this new way of experiencing
Kusama’s work. For one, stepping inside the physical space requires
an advance reservation—and then there’s a pesky 45-second time
limit.

The first “Infinity Drone” Instagram video is a full 14 minutes
long, a rarified experience that you’d never get at the Broad in
the flesh.

“Digitally, you can spend more time with it, and pairing it with
music adds to the digital experience,” Patuto said. But even he
admits the project is only a stop-gap measure until the museum
reopens.

“Obviously, the work is meant to be experienced in person,” he
said.

The post You Can Now Have a Multisensory Experience of a
Yayoi Kusama Infinity Room Online, Thanks to the Broad’s ‘Infinity
Drone’ appeared first on artnet News.