A leading regional business organisation is backing a new digital gallery in Coventry that will attract more visitors into the city and boost the local economy as part of the Coventry UK City of Culture 2021 legacy.
The Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce has become a Founding Partner of The Reel Store, the UK’s first permanent immersive digital art gallery, which will open at the former home of the Coventry Evening Telegraph on 13 May 2022.
The main 800m² exhibition space, created by the Coventry City of Culture Trust, will house a large projection mapping canvas with multiple high quality video projectors and an immersive sound system, helping to bring internationally acclaimed artists to the city.
Louise Bennett, Chief Executive of the Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce, said: “We are delighted to be giving our support to The Reel Store as we believe it is going to be a major attraction for the city and will be an incredible legacy for the city’s year as UK City of Culture 2021.
“It will attract visitors from across the country and, indeed, the world which will have a very positive knock-on effect for the regional economy.
“When you look across the city, you can see the huge amount of investment that has been made over recent years and all of that combined means Coventry has so much to offer to visitors.
“As a Chamber, we have supported UK City of Culture 2021 right from the very beginning of the bid so we are delighted that we can continue to give arts and culture our backing as we move out of our amazing year by investing in the future.”
Martin Sutherland, Chief Executive of the Coventry City of Culture Trust, said: “The Chamber has been a significant supporter of Coventry City of Culture Trust and has helped galvanise business backing for both the bid and delivery.
“We are delighted that they have become a Founding Partner of The Reel Store enabling us to launch a new attraction for the city and welcome visitors from across the UK.”
The first major exhibition will be Machine Memoirs: Space, by internationally acclaimed artist Refik Anadol. The product of a long-term collaboration with NASA, this exhibition uses artificial intelligence (AI) to reimagine two million publicly available images of space taken by NASA satellites and telescopes, and the International Space Station, capturing the deepest regions of outer space. Through machine learning, the computer sorts and categorizes these photographs, ultimately developing an understanding of them. Then, it creates stunning new digital interpretations of space that exist only in the mind of the machine.
Machine Memoirs: Space provides a 360-degree cinematic experience of rich and futuristic visuals accompanied by 3D audio, allowing audiences to encounter the beauty and spectacle of space science, created entirely through AI.
Tickets are now on sale for the exhibition, with 20 per cent of tickets being made available free of charge to non-fee paying schools, Go CV+ cardholders and through exclusive offers from Coventry City of Culture Trust.
The Reel Store has been made possible by the generous support of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, Coventry City Council via the Council’s Cultural Capital Investment Fund, the Government’s Getting Building Fund through the Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership (CWLEP), The Patrick Trust, The Linbury Trust, Edward Cadbury Charitable Trust, Barco and Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce.