New AI projection launches in Kelowna cultural district

Photo: ARTSCO

A new AI-driven light display will on the exterior of the Rotary Centre for this month.

A new AI-driven visual arts projection has launched in downtown Kelowna’s Cultural District.

It is called Autolume Acedia, part of the digital urban screen series Light Up Kelowna.

The projections are free to view and will be shown on the exterior of the Rotary Centre for the Arts (421 Cawston Ave.) from 6:00 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. for the month of February.

Autolume Acedia is a hallucinatory meditation on the ancient emotion called acedia. Acedia describes a mixture of contemplative apathy, nervous nostalgia, and paralyzed angst. Greek monks first described this emotion two millennia ago, and it captures the paradoxical state of being simultaneously bored and anxious.

While music plays, the Autolume, a video generation system that automates live music visualization, dreams about bodies, organs, and bones, creating abstract visuals which seem to be dancing to the sounds.

Light Up Kelowna is a partnership between the Arts Council of the Central Okanagan (ARTSCO) and UBC Okanagan’s Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies.

“This is such a fascinating series, and I encourage Kelowna residents to come on down to the Cultural District this February to see some very unique art! Autolume Acedia offers inspiration and reflection. Reflection on the analog and digital worlds and also on what it means to be human. It will get people thinking and talking, and I’m sure it will inspire a few folks too," said Kirsteen McCulloch, executive director at ARTSCO.