Sysco Productions are honoured to be working with Coventry City of Culture Trust to undertake the detailed design and integration of the creative technology at The Reel Store, the UK’s first permanent immersive digital art gallery. Opening in the heart of Coventry, this UK first visitor experience is housed in the former home of the Coventry Evening Telegraph newspaper. Following renovations, this transformed space will feature innovative experiential art commissions that will be central to Coventry UK City of Culture 2021’s legacy,

The first major exhibition to be showcased will be Machine Memoirs: Space, by internationally renowned artist Refik Anadol, a pioneer in the aesthetics of data and machine intelligence. Intersecting at the crossroads of art, science, and technology, his work uses cutting-edge technology and big data advancements to creatively speak to the most pressing challenges of our time, and what it means to be a human in the age of machines.

The main exhibition space will consist of a large scale projection mapped canvas that will provide a 360 degree cinematic experience of rich, futuristic visuals and immersive spatialised audio. Here the audience can experience the beauty and spectacle of space science, created entirely through artificial intelligence. 

The product of a long-term collaboration with NASA, this exhibition uses AI to reimagine two million publicly available images of space taken by NASA satellites, and the International Space Station, capturing the deepest regions of outer space. Through machine learning, the computer sorts and categorises these photographs and ultimately develops an understanding of them. It then creates stunning new digital interpretations of space that exist only in the mind of the machine.

Working closely with Coventry City of Culture Trust, Sysco productions have assembled a multi-disciplinary team of experts to deliver the show technology that will facilitate groundbreaking artists over the coming years.

Refik Anadol, said: “Machine Memoirs: Space invites us to dream of an alternative universe where machines collaborate with humans to speculate our existence and create an alternative future. This is a hopeful future where machines and humanity, in combination, are agents for healing. A collaborative relationship with machines can give us new insights, knowledge and the power to not only dream, but create a better world.”

Martin Sutherland, Chief Executive of Coventry City of Culture Trust, comments: “The Reel Store is a hugely exciting venture, with Coventry becoming home to the UK’s only permanent truly immersive digital art gallery, a major draw for Coventrians and visitors. We are delighted that our partners have backed the vision for this permanent new visitor attraction, transforming old media into new media, as part of the legacy of our year as UK City of Culture.”

Sam Woodhouse, Business Development Director at Sysco Productions adds: “We’re extremely excited to be working on this visionary project with Coventry City of Culture, particularly as artistic expression through the medium of immersive technology is at the dawn of a golden age. No one has demonstrated this more than Refik over recent years, with an astounding body of work. We are honoured to be supporting his studio in realising Machine Memoirs for Coventry.”

The new exhibition is scheduled to open to the public on Friday 13th May.

Image Credit: Refik Anadol Studios