Bassins de Lumières: the largest digital art centre in the world

A submarine base, four water tanks, 90 video projectors and 80 loudspeakers. These are the four basic ingredients of Bassins de Lumières, the largest digital art centre in the world that will open its doors in Bordeaux on the 17th of April. The company Culturespaces has restored and refurbished these German-built bunkers, turning them into a unique setting that allows people to be submerged in a surprising artistic experience.

Bassins de Lumières will present monumental, immersive digital exhibitions, projecting the works on the centre’s gigantic architecture and its water tanks. The tour is carried out on walkways raised up over the water and along the piers, adding a new dimension to the experience.

To start with, Klimt and Klee

The first visitors who walk along the platforms around these tanks will be able to enjoy a wide variety of exhibitions. The main one will be devoted to Viennese painting, reflecting the work of Gustav Klimt and his successors through portraits, landscapes, nudes, colours and gold. All of this in XXL format, inviting spectators to get right  inside the works, accompanied by music and where creations such as the famous work, The Kiss will not be missing.
The walls will also reflect another immersive exhibition devoted to the coloured, abstract works by the artist Paul Klee. The tour pays tribute to the German’s pictorial genres and music manages to involve visitors from the very beginning, causing a special connection.

Projections on the water

In addition to the main basins, six new spaces have been created at the centre to offer all kinds of artistic expressions. Therefore, the so-called ‘Cube’, with 220 square metres and a height of 8 metres, will concentrate on contemporary art created by digital artists. Visitors will be able to discover a new creation by the digital studio Ouchhh, specialised in graphic design, movement design and digital projections. For their creations, Ouchhh uses artificial intelligence and questions the act of artistic creation. The Cisterne space will use its 155 square metres to explain the links between the original works and the ones that are shown in the immersive exhibitions; whilst the Large Water Lily area will be used to project images on the water. There will also be a museum, a teaching space where the immersive exhibition can be understood better, a balcony, a stage and some seating areas from which to contemplate the works from different points of view.

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The big brother

Bassins de Lumières represents three times the surface area of Carrières de Lumières (an old limestone quarry) in Baux-de-Provence and five times the surface area of the Atelier del Lumières (an old foundry) in Paris. Both centres are the younger brothers and are already renowned members of the Culturespace and museum family that are essential in the development of immersive digital art exhibitions.

The figures for the Bassins de Lumières 

4 ponds, measuring 110 m long by 22 m wide and 12 m high.
13,000 m2 of total surface area.
12,000 of projection surface area.
3,000 m2 of itinerary surface area.
90 video projectors and 80 loudspeakers.