What is The Lumosphere?

The Lumosphere is PYTCH's very first fully conceptualised, designed and self-hosted installation. Having been a large part of a number of light trails and immersive installations over the years; Bristol Light Festival, GLOW & Westonbirt Enchanted Christmas to name a few, we have amassed a lot knowledge and experience with them, and equally have developed and come up with a lot of unique ideas, some of which hadn't ever had the opportunity to see the light of day yet.

For 2023, we wanted to have a go at hosting our very own experience, somewhere we could play with our ideas and put our creativity and collective ideas together in our very own way. With PYTCH founder and CEO, Johnny Palmer having also now taking over ownership and development of The Stables at Leigh Court we had the opportunity of a pretty unique space for us to experiment in and let our ideas run free.

We always wanted the Lumosphere to be a collaborative and interactive experience, one of the core philosophies; that eventually became the tagline moving forward, was for it to be "where art & technology collide".

Collaborating with local artists is something we're particularly proud of doing here at PYTCH in our past work, and we wanted to bring that into the Lumosphere too. We have a lot of impressive equipment here and a lot of talented people that allow us to program and design some amazing visual experiences, but being able to connect them with physical and interactive art alongside some amazing creators really binds the Lumosphere together.

How did we develop The Lumosphere's story?

This early understanding of the intended creative approach naturally helped lead into the narrative design of the Lumosphere. Being constructed from a range of individually impressive installations needed a story to connect them if we wanted to it to connect with our guests.

We had to ask ourselves, 'why do these things exist in this same shared space?' and 'what ties them to eachother in the real world?', building a strong backstory is a fundamental part to audiences engaging with your installation. A bunch of individually fascinating and impressive displays; whilst still fun for a guest is incohesive and can often feel more like a vibrant art gallery than an "interactive experience".

The Lumosphere needed to; in a broad sense, be vague and mysterious whilst at its core remaining a strong story point that links the experience together. Because of this, we gave the Lumosphere an otherworldy and ethereal history, we developed the Lumosphere to become not just 'this place' you're in currently, but an anomoly that transports you to the installations you're in, a collection of windows from our world to another where you can experience these individual experiences one by one as you traverse the "Lumosphere".

We gave each installation an identity, represented by the feeling or message it aims to deliver, and made it an objective for guests to visit each of these spaces as they journey through the experience and asked them to think deeper about them in this way.

Through all this, we gave body to the Lumosphere that allowed guests to find reasoning for each piece, and enjoy a story that develops throughout.

The Installations

Beginnings
Into the Lumosphere
An ethereal tunnel that transports you from our world into that of The Lumosphere.
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Life
Microbiology Garden
It is no ordinary garden, but a living work of art. Witness the minuscule building blocks of all life in the midst of winter's chill.
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Discovery
Explore & Play
A room destined for discovery, use all of your senses, interact & play with your environment and explore the world around you.
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Change
Climatology Capsule
Become fully encapsulated in a dynamic & ever evolving videoscape of nature and weather. As time changes, so do the sights, sounds & scents.
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Connection
Wood Wide Web
You must work in harmony with one another. Your different experiences become shared as you engage with the physical world between you.
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Growth
Ambisonics Chamber
Enter a sonic landscape like you have never heard before, as the soundscape embodying you develops and grows.
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Rebirth
Timewarp
Your journey has come full circle. Everything you have experienced is met in a sensory crescendo and you are taken back to reality.
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