This captivating immersive art experience invites visitors on a journey of exploration within the galactic ecosystem of planet Nocturne X, a 4000-square-foot interactive forest filled with surprising stories and hidden puzzles. Hundreds of glowing plants, designed and hand-sculpted by the team at Numina Studio, create a landscape brimming with life as the interconnected vegetation responds to touch, sound, and movement. With the use of A.I. and other custom-built technologies, this multisensory installation transports visitors through space to an awe-inspiring unknown world.
By day, the interactive playground invites attendees of all ages on a self-guided expedition of cosmic discovery. At night, the environment transforms into a premier event space available for private rental, complete with dance floor, DJ booth, and enveloping music visualization, with each extraterrestrial flora in the forest responding to music and motion in its own unique way.
The Justinoptera is one of the hundreds of different plants and creatures to be discovered on Nocturne X.
“So many immersive experiences out there feel closer to aesthetic sets you can stand in front of and take selfies. For Nocturne X, we saw this huge opportunity for artists to leverage technology to craft a world that really invites the audience to engage with it. The entire team worked hard to ensure that Nocturne X really feels alive and I’m proud to say that it truly stands apart from other immersive experiences across the country,” said Numina Studio’s co-founder and artist Shlomo Zippel.
Nocturne X is the first major production from Numina Studio, a 50-person team of artists and tradespeople — sculptors, fabricators, metal and woodworkers, sound and light designers — who work alongside world-class hardware and software technology experts. Through the creative application of cutting-edge technologies, Numina Studio empowers artists to explore new mediums and create experiences that blur the lines between storytelling, technology, and the arts.
Each artist is highly-accomplished in their own craft having collectively or individually produced large-scale public installations at festivals and museums, including Burning Man’s Tree of Ténéré and 13th Floor Dance Theater’s Assemblage of Monsters/An Immersive Gothic Fairytale. For Nocturne X, Numina Studio artists pooled creative resources and past learnings to create an entirely new experience that relies on the equal contributions of artists and technologists to bring this ambitious concept to life.
Nocturne X is Gray Area’s first major immersive exhibition since February 2020, when the debut of Gaian-themed anti-selfie experience The End Of You was cut short by the Covid-19 shutdowns. During the pandemic, Gray Area has largely focused on growing a global audience through online programming but is now reopened to the San Francisco public with a hybrid programming model for the remainder of the year.
“Our success with The End Of You proved that experiential exhibitions can generate vital revenue to sustain local artists,” said Gray Area’s Executive Director, Barry Threw. “After a devastating year for San Francisco’s creative community, we are delighted to present Nocturne X, which not only directly supports the 50-artist Numina team but also serves as a platform to provide opportunities for many more local musicians and performance artists. We encourage everyone to contribute to the cultural revitalization of San Francisco by experiencing this flagship example of the locally-grown art and technology collaborations that Gray Area exists to incubate.”
In addition to Nocturne X, this Fall will see the return of Gray Area Festival for a seventh edition from October 20th to 26th, free and accessible online for attendees around the world. Gray Area Festival 2021’s theme is Worlding Protocol, and features a week-long series of artist talks, workshops, and exhibitions of interdisciplinary creators drawing upon indigenous knowledge, transhumanist philosophies, regenerative ecologies, and autonomous organizations to imagine new relational ontologies beyond utopian and fatalist worldviews. Be on the lookout for more details coming soon surrounding Gray Area Festival 2021 at GrayArea.org.
Tickets for Nocturne X are available for purchase on Nocturne-X.com for hour-long reservations scheduled for Tuesday through Sunday, Noon to 8:00 p.m. Pricing for tickets between Noon through 4:00 p.m. start at just $20, while those scheduled for 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. cost $30 and up. Visitors are encouraged to reserve their times quickly, as capacity is limited and early-bird introductory prices will rise as spaces fill. Group rates are also available.
Gray Area requires all visitors to provide proof of full COVID-19 vaccinations in order to ensure the safety of our local community in accordance with City of San Francisco health guidelines. Mask-wearing will also be strictly enforced at all times within the exhibition, and the space will be sanitized frequently.
For more details about Nocturne X, including grand opening festivities and the release of additional tickets for the entire duration of the exhibit, make sure to visit Nocturne-X.com as well as follow along on Instagram at @nocturnexsf, on Facebook at @nocturnexsf, and on Twitter at @nocturnexsf.
