Phoenix Square, Leicester’s £21.5m new film and digital media centre opened last week (Thursday 19th November), welcoming almost 2,000 visitors through its doors for to experience the latest offering of the St George’s cultural quarter.

Queues were building up outside from early afternoon as the awaited much anticipated development prepared to open its doors to the public for the first time. Once inside, visitors found they were immersed in an all consuming world of digital technology; displays of sound, light, digital art, 3D film and virtual worlds showing off the Film and Digital Media aspects of the development in all their glory, as well as the Living and Office Studio accommodation in the scheme (for which Blueprint is responsible for sales, letting and management – more below).

Phoenix Square has been developed by Blueprint in close partnership with Phoenix cinema, Leicester City Council, De Montfort University and LCB Depot, with funding from ERDF, emda and the Arts Council.

The attractions featured in the launch celebrations included installations from De Montfort University (DMU) including Dr Doug Cawthorne and George Watson’s ‘Virtual Roman Leicester’ – a new interactive research project that digitally recreates Roman Leicester. None of the Above’s ‘Shift’ presentation that uses sounds gathered from around Leicester to produce dynamic, sculptural patterns and shapes projected in stereoscopic 3D. Professor Martin Rieser’s giant outdoor ‘Songlines’ projection, Dr Bret Battey’s showcase of  the DMU Cube and Steve Gibson and Stefan Muller Arisona’s ‘Exploding Plastic and Inevitable Redux’ - a re-imagining of the psychedelic classic created by Andy Warhol with the Velvet Underground in the late 1960s that immerses viewers in a ‘total art’ experience. Plus, a live performance from Sancho Plan.   

We also commissioned a 3D art installation called ‘Life in the Cultural Quarter’ by former DMU student, Sally Rose Renner (see below) and public art collective, Urban Canvas’s ‘Arise’ performance which saw local teenagers from Eyres Monsell and St Marks communities ‘light painting’ in the streets outside Phoenix Square .

Visit the site:
www.phoenix.org.uk

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www.twitter.com/phoenixsquare

Selected launch photography here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38223421
@N03/sets/72157622737243285/