By Elazar Abrahams
Since opening at the start of 2024, Mercer Labs has been a welcome addition to the downtown Manhattan scene. The experimental museum is the brainchild of multidisciplinary artist Roy Nachum, and features fifteen immersive rooms across multiple floors and 36,000 square feet of space. Throughout the week, visitors can view Limitless, the inaugural exhibition that plays with sound and light in breathtaking ways. But this October, from Thursday through Sunday between the hours of 8pm and 12am, the space is host to a different, spookier experience: Dark Matter.
Those in search of a truly eerie experience this Halloween season are in luck, as Nachum’s vision for Dark Matter goes far beyond a run-of-the-mill haunted house. The walkthrough attraction uses the same rooms and format as the regular daytime version of Mercer Labs, but altered in creepy ways. A few years back, a trend of immersive pop-ups took shape, from Van Gogh, to Monet, to Disney. At best, those ventures were fun ways to look at 360 video screen projections, and at worst, they were sloppy cash grabs. Mercer Labs is different; it feels like a real artistic vision – some of it works, some of it is nonsense, but all of the creations feel intentional and deliberate.
Dark Matter is also much more than the opening room that treats guests to panoramic projections of demonic horrors. Later rooms using sculptures, portraits, and state of the art tech and robotics that push provocative imagery and unsettle the crowd. While there are some typical horror tropes, most of the fear comes from the surreal and unknown. Scaredy cats should be just fine if they traverse the museum with a partner.
My favorite section of Mercer is a table where patrons fill out a coloring sheet with provided crayons. When Limitless is on view, you design an animal, which is then scanned into a virtual three-dimensional world on a screen, where the pet appears with the exact quirky palette you drew. In Dark Matter, that activity’s subject is a skull, dropped into the fiery pits of hell with the design of your choosing.
Another highlight is “The Dragon” room, where volumetric lighting allows for the illusion of moving holograms. Combined with clever mirror tricks, it’s a synchronized show that really impresses.
I’d budget about an hour to explore the space, possibly a little more if you really want to bask in each room. Either of the current offerings in Mercer Labs make for a great night out on the town, Limitless closes on November 11, but the witchy ones among us should make a point to seek out Dark Matter before October fades away. Hurry, there are only a few chances left!
Find more information and tickets HERE.
TV and City 