You can watch an abbreviated version of this review on Instagram. 

There’s been an uptick in ‘immersive art experiences’ the past few summers so it’s no surprise that I ended up inside of one accidentally. It was too hot to be outside and I had had ENOUGH of the sun blazing on me. Artechouse, on the South side of Chelsea Market, had an “immersive afrosurrealist exhibition” called Ase: Afrofrequencies. The venue’s whole thing is about combining art, science, and technology: a recipe, I think, for criminal imbalance.

Inside of a former boiler room, seamless projections slink across 4 walls and the floor. It was akin to being in an IMAX movie – except there are no chairs. You sit directly on the floor or on some well-worn cushions and the projections slide right over your lap. Maybe this is the immersion they’re talking about.

The designs, by Vince Fraser, were deeply intricate, and reminded me of weaving. Each layer and piece was connected to the next with no hem indicating where the images ended and began. The auditory experience reminded me of a drum-forward remix of the Star Wars score, emphatically punctuated with spoken word by Ursula Rucker that evoked African kingdoms, the Middle Passage, the Black Power Movement and the ever-growing call for liberation. 

In my view, the collaboration between Vince and Ursula was better suited to a venue that would’ve used science and technology to guide the viewer toward the intentionality of their art. Unlike in a museum or gallery, where a placard would’ve delineated the connection between gilded futuristic city scapes and the ornate minarets atop the mosques in 13th Century Africa, or laid out the legacy connections between the sound track and afro-conciousness performance poetry like that of Gil Scott Heron – the images and words swirled around us, like a fever dream. There was more intentionality on the cocktail menu, with ingredients like sorrel, rooibos-infused vermouth, Jamaican sea moss and baobab chili. The afro frequency, apparently, will not be televised – only tasted.

When the Ase images ended, the room became a garden of butterflies that children chased from wall to wall. This is what this tech house felt best suited for: a hypnotic and colorful use of technology for technology’s sake. Immersive? Only if you can lose yourself in a cold and empty room of expensive illusions. Even on five walls, the frequency was one-dimensional. It may surround the body, but it never touches the spirit.