Slip inside a rainbow at the Boardwalk Art Show

VIRGINIA BEACH

Remember kaleidoscopes from your childhood? As you turned the cylinder, eye pressed to the peephole, a changing world of color and light thrilled your senses.

The Boardwalk Art Show & Festival, which opens today and continues through Sunday, is offering a walk-through version of that experience.

"Amococo" was designed and built by a United Kingdom company called Architects of Air and will be set up starting today on the beach at 24th Street.

A kaleidoscope creates bright patterns using mirrors, light and colorful tidbits.

"Amococo" uses no mirrors. Entering the 10,000-square-foot inflatable structure, visitors will be surrounded by prismatic color created by sunlight passing through the structure's special plastic material. As the atmosphere changes outdoors, the colors and patterns inside will change, too.

The science and architectural ideas behind "Amococo" are not simple. However, with its surprising presence on the sand, the massive, domed form should look as fun and inviting as the 14 blocks of art lining the Boardwalk for the 56th annual outdoor show.

The project also might help create a stronger link between the Boardwalk show and the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia. While the Boardwalk show is well known, many locals are unaware that the art center organizes it.

The project might strengthen that link because "Amococo" could pass for museum-quality contemporary art. Think Andy Warhol's inflatable silver pillows and Jeff Koons' giant topiary sculpture of a puppy, now installed at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain.

Is "Amococo" art?

"I believe it is," said Ragan McManus, director of exhibitions and education at the Contemporary Art Center. "I think art is formed by the questions you ask about it."

An observation deck will be set up by the entrance of "Amococo," manned by McManus and other representatives of the center and Architects of Air. They'll be ready to illuminate the subject with prisms and kaleidoscopes and lots of information.

"We're going to be asking lots of questions about what people are seeing and what their experience is like, McManus said. "So when an object starts dialogue and stimulates social discourse, then I call it art."

She laughed. "I can look at a lamp, and if I have certain questions, it becomes an art object for me."

Architects of Air, based in Nottingham, England, was started by Alan Parkinson, who made his first walk-in, inflatable environment in 1985.

Parkinson, who remains artistic director of the company, began by creating performance settings for dancers and actors. He gradually moved toward structures for the general public to marvel at and wander around in, just for the experience. Now the staff of Architects of Air sends its luminaria - what they call their sun-lighted structures - all over the world on tour.

"Amococo," created in 2008, has appeared in Australia, Denmark and Hungary. It appeared in Raleigh, N.C., last month during a festival. A scan of the company's touring history reveals that the Boardwalk show marks the first time an Architects of Air project has come to Virginia.

Mado Ehrenborg, managing director of the company, wrote by email that the piece was named for Parkinson's son, Nico. "Amo" is Latin for love, she wrote, and "coco" is for Nico.

"Amococo" is the most labyrinthine of the luminaria created by the group. The inspiration for the form includes Islamic architecture and Gothic cathedrals.

The installation features 71 "pods" where a cluster of people could lounge and experience the space. Ovoid windows allow light to gently diffuse in the domes.

A French company produces just the right plastic for the luminaria - thin enough so light can pass through, yet strong enough to endure foot traffic.

"It is a place to relax that is both stimulating and comforting," Ehrenborg wrote. "Some will describe it as walking through a stained glass window, others like being in a human body or inside a breathing whale."

Some of the plastic is colored, and other parts are silvery. Natural daylight passes through the colored sections and reflects onto the silvery plastic, she wrote, "which creates various subtle hues through which the visitors can wander or immerse themselves in."

Teresa Annas, (757) 446-2485, teresa.annas@pilotonline.com