An immersive, interactive art experience at Sawtooth Artist Run Initiative invites viewers to consume and connect with a three-dimensional experience of the Tarkine rainforest. 

Takayna Hypostasis is a high-tech artwork collaboration by Soma Lumia. 

The group consists of artists Darryl Rogers and Troy Merritt, with technology experts Joe Robinson, Brendan Hodkinson, Bruce Andrews, James Riggall and Mike Cruse. 

Each member plays an integral role in creating, producing, editing, installing and coding the project which requires 800 individual, computer-controlled LED lights behind two semi-translucent screens.

“I wanted to do an artwork that actually brought people into the Tarkine in a real way,” Rogers said. 

“What I am interested in, I guess, is this idea that there is a deeper reality to things and an interconnectedness,” he said.

Takayna Hypostasis registers the movement and stillness of viewers.

As visitors enter the space LED lights react to their stillness, as movement in the room becomes obsolete the dynamic lights brighten and a soundtrack begins to play creating a harmonic replica of the Tarkine.  

“This whole work is simply about the stiller you stand the more alive that environment becomes,” Rogers said. 

“It also has connections to the way we affect the environment.”

Rogers hoped the work would use a new experience to create a powerful sense of environment. 

“When you stop and observe something deeper happens in terms of how you connect with that world around you,” he said. 

Rogers drew inspiration from the Tarkine in Motion group. 

“I’ve been following them for some time and thought, ‘I’d like to do a work that somehow has connections to that part of Tasmania’,” he said. 

Discussions about the concept of Takayna Hypostasis began about 12-months ago. 

“I am always playing around with this idea of what’s real and what’s not real,” Rogers said. 

The video artwork will be displayed at Sawtooth ARI until October 29.