DIVINE COALESCENCE: A PREVIEW
The making of Divine Coalescence
Image courtesy of Glowing Bulbs and Leo Kuelbs, 2012
What is more classic than a bottle Dom Pérignon vintage? If we are talking about art or music, one may have an argument. However, if we are talking about champagne, there is only one; Dom Pérignon. Happening June 4th at Bärensaal, Berlin is an exclusive video art event meticulously curated by Leo Kuelbs and visually brought to fruition by Glowing Bulbs.  Titled Divine Coalescence, the large-scale video project will feature a unique composition and song, Day of the Days, by Nadja Michael, world renowned opera singer who in March 2012, performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York as Lady Macbeth.  Visually attempting to define an experience, a tradition, and a taste, is not an easy task. Together Leo Kuelbs and Glowing Bulbs traveled to the abbey of Hautvillers and Versailles in France to film and gather both imagery and a magical nucleus which to transmit via site specific video mapping. Hautvillers is a small village and the birthplace of Benedictine monk Dom Pierre Pérignon. Legend claims that the monk was able to turn a deep red still champagne into a crystal clear sparkling wine.  I recently sat down with Tamás Zádor of Glowing Bulbs to find out a little more about the process behind the making
of  Divine Coalescence.
The making of Divine Coalescence
Hautvillers, France
Image courtesy of Glowing Bulbs and Leo Kuelbs, 2012
Katy Diamond Hamer: Hi Tamás let’s talk a bit about the process behind Divine Coalescence.
Tamás Zádor: Sure, first off I have to say that Divine Coalescence is a real
coalescence within itself. Not just for the fact that architecture, music and images are coming
together to interact in a site specific video work, but also because we tried to merge and
combine the amazing history of Dom Pérignon with the latest technology and visual language.
KDH: Makes sense. I know that Glowing Bulbs focuses on video mapping projects and is one of the best, emerging in the industry. Gathering content in France, must have been an amazing experience and offered an immeasurable amount of visual reference to be digitally translated.
TZ: Exactly. Our aim was to trace down the essence of Dom Pérignon before trying to interpret and re-form it in a contemporary manner. The site specific nature of the piece is crucial and the space we were given the opportunity to work with has been very influential and inspiring to us. Spending time in France, set the tone and mood of not only Divine Coalescence but for us as well! It marked the way forward with it’s simple and articulated architectural structures. Through the process we became part of this ourselves.
KDH: Traveling to a small village and experiencing it in a contemporary manner is always interesting to me, since many cities are almost frozen in time, contained in a spherical form resonating with energies from the past even as the residents are evolving. The use of technology in art takes a tradition similar to that of painting and explodes it in 3-dimensional, large format virtual forms, something that would have seemed  otherworldly even 50 years ago.
TZ: We worked really hard on this project for a full month. The outcome of our work will only be shown once for a very limited number of people. The circumstance of the situation was a driving force for us to give all there is….especially since there is no second chance.
The making of Divine Coalescence
Image courtesy of Glowing Bulbs and Leo Kuelbs, 2012

Divine Coalescence, curated by Leo Kuelbs and produced by Glowing Bulbs (Tamás Zádor and Farkas Fülöp) is a Dom Pérignon Creators Event and will be on view for one night only in Berlin, Germany. I am an invited guest and will be sure to report on the elite festivities along with the video mapping project in what is quickly becoming a new universal medium, digitally leaving an aesthetic mark, even if momentary, in the realm of contemporary art.

Previous artistic collaborative efforts have featured such artists, designers, and film makers, including Karl Lagerfeld, Marc Newson, Ferran Adrià, Sylvie Fleury, Lang Lang, Robert Wilson,
David Lynch and now Leo Kuelbs who accompany the protagonist, the Dom Perignon, finding ways to visually suspend a moment that can only linger on the taste buds for so long.

More soon!