Thousands of attendees are traveling, climbing, and live-streaming their way through the array of interactive art installations at Meet d3 today. Visitors to the spiritual “To the Ends of Earth” were transported to the deserts of Qatar and Antarctica. Hamida Al Kawari, the first Qatari woman to set foot on Antarctica, debuted her piece, which combined her film footage with Gulf music and natural sounds.
Queues stretched out the door of the nostalgic 1980s-themed arcade hangout “GIF Paradise” by UAE-based artist collective Satwa 3000. Stepping into the mysterious themed rooms, groups of friends and families recorded and shared short and playful animated GIFs on social media.
From the Burning Man collective in the USA to the Dubai Design District (d3), the gigantic, origami-inspired kinetic and interactive mushroom sculptures “Shrumen Lumen” are illuminating and stunning visitors with illumination patterns that respond to visitor movements with its changing colours and shapes.
Spread across the central meeting point of the d3 is the beautiful, hand-painted, three-dimensional artwork in form of the “Sun Canopy”. Created by combining futuristic architectural designs with a visionary art movement, the vivid, majestic sheets are designed to transform the viewer’s perception of space as the pieces dance with the wind and captivate while static.
Inside the glimmering forest of wooden columns called “Luster,” by Sharjah-based architect Noor Jarrah, visitors underwent a reflective journey through the natural experience of shadows mimicking movements. Upon reaching the destination, visitors could climb, sit, or play on the sculptures.
Montreal- based artist Mathieu Le Sourd creates an immersive, audiovisual experience for the audience attending Meetd3 with “Light Sowers”. The experience captures a poetically-led interactive escape inspired by the frail beauty of fireflies and the mysterious atmosphere that they bring to the ordinary world. Felt through sensory touch pads, users control light dancing through liquid-filled lightbulbs in a dark, UV-light led room.
Taking over the first floor of building four is a monumental, inflated silver sphere “Osmo” brought to Meetd3 by Loop.ph. This captivating experience offers guests and visitors a moment of calm and relaxation as it creates an encapsulating experience under the stars as the structure creates a projected universe under its enveloped casing with visual effects and ambient soundscapes from outer space.
Under the guidance of Czech master artists Lasvit, which recently debuted glass sculptures at the Dubai Opera, visitors at the “Lasvit Glass Experience” blew, twirled, and transformed raw glass into objects.
There will be a host of additional local and regional talent at Meet d3 this weekend.