Lightroom, Kings Cross, London
This potted history of Nasa’s space exploration featuring gigantic and crystal clear footage is invigorating if slightly hampered by its school science tone
Tom Hanks is the narrator and co-writer of this colossal and immersive multimedia family entertainment event or next-level school trip, about Nasa’s historic Apollo moon landings and the planned new Artemis missions. It’s taking place at Lightroom, the innovative new digital art performance venue at London’s Kings Cross – recently the site of Bigger And Closer, an immersive show about David Hockney.
With the audience gathered in the darkened arena-type area, seated on little upholstered double-stools dotted about, Tom Hanks’s likably folksy and nerdily enthusiastic voiceover booms out telling us that this floor space is the size of Mission Control, Houston. Soon, gobsmackingly huge photo images of the moon’s surface and our own planet Earth are flashed up around the walls, also great film footage of the astronauts bouncing and floating, and all with the cathedral vastness and crystal clarity that they have probably always deserved but never before got from TV screens or even movie screens.
In this vein, we get a celebratory potted history of Apollos 11-17 with tasters of the Artemis project, and all with marvellous visuals – though you have to keep rubbernecking to ensure you’re not missing something behind you. The effect is something between video art display at a gallery and the hour-long science-themed films of the early days of Imax.
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