New Public Art: the Gaiascope in Mountain Village

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  – I’m Brooke Einbender. You can call me Mindbender, and I’m back here in Telluride to debut my newest installation, Gaiascope. The project originated in 2024 when I got a grant to build it in Scottsdale, Arizona for a public art event. And since then, it’s been traveling. After that, it went to San Jose for the FIFA World Cup, and now I get to bring it home to Telluride for two months. So it’s really exciting. So Gaiascope features three immersive kaleidoscope sculptures that are interactive. So at night, they come alive and are illuminated with LEDs, site-specific video art, and these interactive pedestals, which allow you to push buttons and turn knobs to change the lighting, the color, the pattern, the density, and really curate your own experience with the artwork. And these artworks reimagine the natural wonders of this planet into psychedelic forms. So the video art that’s mounted at the end of each piece displays nature footage inspired by the local landscape, spanning from large aspen groves to micro patterns found in mycelium and lichen. It’s in an incredible location here in Mountain Village at the base of Lift Four and Heritage Plaza. And so it’s amazing how you can see it when you’re riding down into town from the gondola. It just inspires this amazing childlike wonder and curiosity, and it’s so great for all ages. So I moved here in 2018, and I really moved here to begin my art journey and rediscover my voice, my style, moving from New York City. And I began as an oil painter and always saw my paintings as portals that I wanted to jump into and be completely immersed in. And so I got a grant from Telluride Arts in 2018 to get a virtual reality headset where I began translating my oil paintings into 3D simulations. And that really unlocked something within me with thinking spatially and about immersive art, but I wanted to bring my digital art back into the physical realm. And so at the height of the pandemic, I collected reclaimed doors from the community here in Telluride as a reaction to the times of lockdown and being isolated behind closed doors on a global scale. And it became this community project where I transformed these reclaimed doors that would’ve gone to the landfill into these kaleidoscopic portals. And one installation was the unknown zone here in Mountain Village in 2021, and it featured my portals along the Boulevard Trail, which was really just so special to showcase my portals and the backdrop of this beautiful mountain landscape. But it’s been a minute since I’ve done a larger scale installation here in Telluride, and so bringing Gaiascope here really feels like this beautiful arc of showcasing my journey as an artist starting from a painter, virtual reality, and now immersive interactive public art. And it’s my hope that this really unlocks something for the town of Telluride. And it’s a new form of experience, a new destination point, a new way to connect and bring people together. And I think that’s what the power of public art does.