Friday night Bob and I strolled through the mist-filled tubular corridors of something called a luminarium. It was, in short, a mighty balloon with a flap door, sitting on the ground in downtown Raleigh for a festival called Art on the Edge. The pictures in the paper had looked like people were wandering through Gulliver's internal organs.
The pictures didn't prepare me for entering that flowing glowing trembling labyrinth, full of shifting colors and soft music. It's titled Levity III and billed as being a bit like a cathedral, a bit like a mosque. In any event, it's other-worldly.
At the same time, it feels like something alive. Visitors leave their shoes at the entrance, explore the dim interior with bare feet. The floor and walls feel like cool flesh, they have a kind of "give" that invites further contact. We were among the many to lie down for a while. (That's Bob in the cell phone picture I shot.)
I emerged feeling mentally and physically refreshed, delighted by an experience entirely new to me. Downtown seemed more vivid than when I'd entered the balloon. And nobody was pumping any mind-altering smoke in there. This was just a piece of art, doing its job.
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