New dynamic immersive art installation from Kenzo Digital to live in the New York city skyline at SUMMIT One Vanderbilt. air, a world-bending, multi-sensory art experience opened October 21, 2021.
Kenzo Digital, in collaboration with SL Green Realty Corp., is proud to present Air, a mind-bending new immersive art experience within SUMMIT One Vanderbilt. In a true love letter to the city, acclaimed artist Kenzo Digital has taken a thousand-foot-high venue, with a view that spans from Coney Island to the Bronx Zoo, and created a multisensory, transformative experience that is groundbreaking, euphoric, and will forever change the way we view the New York City skyline.
New York City is my home, my constant source of inspiration; it has molded me and given me so much. With Air, I want to create a space that shares the intoxicating sense of aspiration and inspiration that New Yorkgives me with everyone who visits it—a beacon of possibility that pays tribute to all that New York is, can be, will be
- said Kenzo Digital.
Air is a walkthrough art experience that begins after entering SUMMIT One Vanderbilt adjacent to Grand Central Terminal and extends through a mirrored, light-infused elevator ride up a thousand feet to the 91st floor. Once atop the building, Air offers visitors a multi-floor, multi-space immersion that challenges their notions of physical reality, the city that surrounds them, and their sense of self.
Air is a story of both literal and figurative reflection. Through the use of glass mirrors on every structural surface, Airappears boundless, without fixed form, and offers a tantalizing and singular experience for each visitor at each moment. With everything mirrored, each step rearranges what visitors see with incredible complexity and scale, as if in defiance of physics. Air defamiliarizes the world, and the process of finding a new equilibrium opens up a sense of elemental curiosity.
Air is an immersion in nature in the heart of Manhattan, likened to a Central Park in the sky. With its unique vantage point, Air brings the outside environment into the space and then magnifies it infinitely. Whether sunrise or sunset, blue sky or cloudy, rain or snow, inside Air, every weather pattern conjures a revelatory world that provides endless opportunity for exploration.
In addition to its remarkable materiality, Air is a living, breathing entity, expressed through its multisensory use of sound, lighting, production design, and game engine. It's a story that evolves with each successive space, bringing visitors deeper and deeper into the experience until finally, they become part of it. Though Air is deeply personal, the experience reveals shared consciousness, inviting visitors of any age to revel in collective wonder.
After the sun sets, the magic of Air takes new form as the space is transformed through a one-of-a-kind light and sound story, turning it into a beacon of energy, visible to all of New York City.
Air is another dimension, where you discover that time rearranges itself as fluidly as the view. Through its boundless juxtapositions of form, Air compels you to live in the present moment: calm, aware, free
- said Kenzo Digital.
Kenzo was commissioned to design the installation by SUMMIT One Vanderbilt. Air represents a bold, innovative leap forward in physical-space storytelling and the remarkable potential at the intersection of art and real estate on a grand scale. Air serves as the crown jewel of SUMMIT One Vanderbilt—its unique illusions are visible from the street all around the city.
Air opens to the public on October 21. Air can be viewed and experienced exclusively at Summit One Vanderbilt.
CREDITS
- Press Kit: Kenzo Digital
- Photography: SUMMIT One Vanderbilt
