The Somerville Museum is hosting Space Invaders, a collaborative community art project exploring themes of alienation in its many forms.

By Michael McHugh

From June 3 to July 9, The Somerville Museum will be presenting Space Invaders, a collaborative community art project curated by audio-visual artist Rook Murao, aka SRCFLP, alongside artists Hayato Kawai (Supanoba), Ian Condry (Leftroman), Charles “Charlo” Choueiri (Mr. Improbable), and Mieko Murao.

This immersive art experience explores themes of cultural programming, language, xenophobia, unfamiliarity, and more through emerging audio-visual mediums such as projection mapping and spatial sound.

The showroom has been given a deliberately alien feeling environment, with the sounds of black hole sonifications playing through numerous purposefully placed speakers and colorful, radiating projections lighting up the room.

A central theme of the exhibition is an exploration of the meaning of the word “alien” as a term often used to describe immigrants as well as the unfamiliar or disturbing. Through parody, absurdism, and impactful imagery, the show works to redefine and recontextualize the concept of “alien” as something to be celebrated and welcomed – it being that immigrants throughout history made the US what it is in the first place.

The messages of the show go along with its untraditional setup and use of immersive art mediums, provided through collaboration with the MIT Spatial Sound Lab, as a departure from the familiar art exhibit arrangement allows for a more accessible dialogue.

“I think the allure of immersive art is that it’s accessible in the sense that we’re unlike conventional museums where they don’t let you touch or in the sense that for the visually impaired [for instance] we give sound as another aspect of the art that they can experience, and it breaks down those barriers,” explains Rook Murao. “So it’s a message for accessibility, and perhaps even inclusivity.”

The show plays with the meaning of the term alien within the American lexicon, as well as the culture of humans vs. non-humans that its double-meaning creates. “We’re all humans who are just born into this system so far,” continued Murao, “And it’s up to us to remix it or just completely overhaul it. Questioning those meanings behind a word, I think gives us a tool or a way of looking at the world.”

Through their work, each artist contributes to this interdimensional theme celebrating multicultural America and its future. Mieko Muruao’s artwork includes walls with intricate displays of flowers which are all native to countries outside of America, intended to inspire thinking of the country as a diverse ecosystem mirroring the flowers and exemplify the beauty of experimentation.

Hayato Kawai (Supanoba) provides a look into the upbringings of the Asian American community with his art that showcases a tapestry of personal heroes that the artist surveyed other Asian Americans to create, drawing upon the shared experience of being “dissed” or mocked at a young age for having their own ideas of who a hero should be.

Ian Condry (Leftroman), who launched the MIT Spatial Sound Lab, showcases some of the work that they do researching spatial sound by playing sounds including the aforementioned black hole soundscapes captured by NASA over 4,8, and 16 speakers around the room, depending on the day.

Charles “Charlo” Choueiri (Mr. Improbable) presents his Genii piece, a projected visual representation of a “genii or genius’” a mythological guardian angel figure which in the art is portrayed as a mesmerizing light display that highlights the “unfamiliar” part of the term alien.

Rook Murao (SRCFLP), the curator of the exhibit, greatly contributes to this sense of unfamiliarity with his projections, sound work, as well as an abnormal mechanical mask, which he dawns while performing as a musician, sitting as one of the first pieces you notice upon entering.

Part of the intention of the artists was to show that we are all active players in shaping society. By creating this art, they are playing on, interrogating, and bringing new meaning to the term “alien,” while also highlighting its societal damages.

“A word is just the meaning we give to the sound. And these meanings are what really dictates our worldview,” explains Murao. “Art is just a tool to create discourse and dialogue, right? Just an interesting way to ask questions visually, sonically and in different senses. We’re just used to our way in society, our status quo, and our protocols that are appropriate and not see these other meanings that come into play. But art is a safe space where we can explore these questions.”

Learn more by going on line to https://www.somervillemuseum.org/calendar-events/space-invader-tfcke.