Design studio Marshmallow Laser Feast to headline Manchester Science Festival

Design studio Marshmallow Laser Feast will be installing a new immersive artwork as part of Manchester Science festival. The commissioned audio-visual piece, titled Distortions in Spacetime, aims to take “visitors into the heart of a black hole”.

It is the first chapter in a new body of work titled The Scale of Things, which proposes to “turn participants into particle clouds on a giant screen and give them the sense of being squashed, stretched and spaghettified as they are affected by gravitational waves,” according to the studio.

Barney Steel, Creative Director of Marshmallow Laser Feast, said: “Our work appeals to the emotion and beauty in science. This piece is part of an ongoing exploration into general relativity, which describes space time as fluid, deformed by the mass within it, a phenomenon beyond the limits of our perception. This experience brings unimaginable cosmic forces into our field of view so we can explore the phenomenon predicted by Einstein over 100 years ago.” 

Audience members are encouraged to explore and interact with the environment they will be rewarded with opportunities to see particle jets whipped up, view gravitational lensing, and pass through the photon spheres.

Marshmallow Laser Feast’s previous work includes In The Eyes of the Animal, a virtual reality experience which placed visitors in an animal’s paws as they explored a forest, and Colossal Wave, which explored astronomical levels of sea pollution.

Distortions in Spacetime will premiere at the British Science Festival at the University of Hull from Tuesday 11 September before going on to be part of the headline programme at the Manchester Science Festival from October 18.