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Canada / Ottawa

Kontinuum: An Underground Journey Through Time

Open from July 16 – September 14, Kontinuum, the ‘worlds-first underground experience’ has transformed the future Lyon Light Rail Transit station into an immersive interactive art installation. Open daily from 10 am to 10 pm, tickets are free and can be reserved online.

Kontinuum was co-created by Ottawa 2017 and world-renowned Canadian multimedia studio Moment Factory where an alternative dimension of invisible frequencies is imagined, and each person visiting is invited to be scanned and document their own personal frequency.

Throughout exploring the dark hallways with light and video spectators are encouraged to explore and imagine. While at first everyone takes the same path, at one point you will need to make a choice to either go right or left and can only see either side until you reconvene again at the “train” video projection at the end. In the end, I was too curious of what I missed by picking the left side when I first visited that I visited a few days later to see the right side as well. While I personally preferred the left, the ability to choose, interact and explore made me love the entire experience even more.

If possible, I would suggest visiting later in the evening, as the hallways become darker, and it adds a more dark and mysterious vibe to the entire experience which heightened it for me on my first visit as it did a better job of hiding the construction of the light rail at some parts.

When visiting you should allow for around 30-40 minutes but it could go shorter or longer depending on how long you spend at each location. At the end, you will see a stunning projected video of a train, and make sure to look for your own face to appear in the video.  You will also be given the option to download a photo of your “personal frequency” on the link provided on your ticket which is a wonderful addition.

Overall, I was dazzled by this free experience and highly recommend going in the evening and then stopping by one of the nearby Sparks Street restaurants for dinner or cocktails, such as Riveria.