Cover photo: Modern Guru and the Path to Artificial Happiness by ENESS, Chateaugiron – ph. David Zanardi
Founded in 1997 in Melbourne, ENESS is an award-winning studio that merges creativity and technology to craft public installations—both temporary and permanent—that reshape the urban landscape. Each work is a visual narrative where light becomes a symbolic medium, a language that communicates meaning and stirs emotion. Defying traditional boundaries, the studio’s mission is to bring art directly into the city, beyond galleries and museums, transforming shared spaces into vibrant stages of interaction.
Their installations awaken curiosity, foster social connection, and trigger unexpected reflections. Light and interactive design serve as physical conduits for these experiences, helping people rediscover familiar environments through new emotional and sensory lenses. Public art, in this vision, becomes a generator of social and emotional dynamics.
ENESS and the power of Interactive Art
The ENESS collective believes in the power of interactive art to generate meaningful relationships between people and the environments they inhabit. As founder and artist Nimrod Weis explains: «Our works invite people to explore space authentically, fostering a connection both with their surroundings and with others».
Each installation is crafted to involve the public actively—they are not passive viewers but co-creators. This participatory dimension makes the pieces feel “alive”: shifting, growing, and responding in real time. ENESS installations reconfigure space, stir emotions, and inspire new social behaviors.
Design, light, and technology in perfect harmony
What makes ENESS unique is the seamless integration of design, light, and technology. According to Weis: «By integrating these elements and making technology invisible, we create magic—but it’s the emotion that matters most». The technology remains in the background; what emerges is an immersive atmosphere that connects deeply with the viewer. The transformation these installations offer isn’t merely visual—it’s emotional and behavioral. Every detail is designed to engage the senses, creating memorable experiences that shift our perception of place and time.
The Installations of ENESS
ENESS uses light and digital interaction to reshape our understanding of public space. Their installations—presented in neighborhoods, museums, galleries, and international festivals—transform ordinary environments into places of connection, play, and contemplation.
Modern Guru and the Path to Artificial Happiness
Exploring the role of AI, the future of creativity, and humanity’s evolving identity, this immersive piece stages a dialogue between technology and nature. Modern Guru features skeletal trees—symbols of environmental decay—and a glowing snail maze that embodies digital confusion.
At its center stands the Modern Guru, a character who speaks AI-generated phrases that provoke thought about authorship and artificial culture.
Weis compares this moment to the dawn of the printing press, when access to literature was radically reshaped. The work asks: Can we still preserve human authenticity in cultural production, or will AI redefine creativity? Previously exhibited at the Royal Château de Blois (France), ICONSIAM (Thailand), and Centre d’art à Châteaugiron (Rennes).
Iwagumi Air Rocks
Inspired by the Iwagumi art of stone arrangement, this monumental light installation reimagines a mountainous landscape within a dense urban fabric. Spanning 4,900 square meters, it juxtaposes wild, primal forms with the geometry of modern architecture, offering winding, intimate paths for visitors to explore.
Subtle soundscapes and nuanced lighting effects invite stillness and introspection, while the stones—seemingly massive and rough—are crafted from air-pressurized materials, simulating weight and texture without mass. The effect is both surreal and immersive: solid forms that defy physical expectations. Iwagumi Air Rocks premiered at i Light Singapore 2024.
Bunjil Creation Cinema
This large-scale kinetic sculpture pays tribute to Aboriginal mythology through the figure of Bunjil, the eagle-spirit creator. Its wings move in a slow, rhythmic motion, while layered video projections and an enveloping soundscape immerse the viewer in a sensory reflection on origins, nature, and the continuity of life.
The installation becomes a shared ritual of presence, where past, present, and future collide in a timeless act of storytelling. It’s a permanent work located at Mirvac, Sydney, since 2022.
Waterbody
Celebrating Sydney’s identity as a water city, Waterbody is an interactive light sculpture that translates movement into flowing waves of light. As visitors walk through the installation, over 2,000 LEDs react in real time, creating a shifting palette of orange, pink, blue, green, and white, evoking sunrise, ocean depth, algae, and sea foam.
The interplay of motion and light turns each step into a sensory reaction: light doesn’t just illuminate—it expresses.
Designed as a living system, Waterbody transforms public space into an emotional and environmental mirror, where natural imagery is recreated through responsive digital language. Permanently installed at Mirvac, Sydney, since 2022.
