We expect to hear a lot of great music at the Gasparilla Music Festival, but 2021 brings some art as well. This year, GMF ticket holders can preview a 30-foot-long piece of the Peninsularium in Kiley Gardens during the festival, which runs Friday-Sunday, Oct. 1-3 in downtown Tampa.
The immersive installation—inspired by scuba diving, firefighting, a 1980s fantasy film, and a renaissance-era theatrical illusion—is sure to confuse the hell out of folks, but in a good way. Crab Devil’s Peninsularium is all about illusions, especially the old-school theatrical kind.
“Munchausen Waves” is based on the column wave effect invented by Baroque architect Nicola Sabbatini to present the illusion of a wave-filled sea. Crab Devil CEO Devon Brady first saw the illusion in Terry Gilliam’s 1988 adventure fantasy film, “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.” He’s been obsessed with it ever since. Brady, a carpenter with experience doing set design, actually figured out how to make the thing. Then he put his own spin on it for The Peninsularium, which is set to open in 2022 in Ybor Heights.
The original illusion utilizes a crank to move each snake-like wave across the stage. In the film, which begins as a play, you see the Baron character standing atop a stage ship in a sea of still waves. He dramatically stomps his foot while saying “set sail.” He’s telling the stagehands to turn the crank and get the waves moving. Although the 1988 film is mostly fictional, Baron Munchausen was an actual person. Thanks to his habit of telling tall tales, the name Munchausen became synonymous with the art of illusion.
Brady’s “Munchausen Waves” is a trippier version of the original that replaces the snake-like waves with colorful discs. The idea was to change the engineering so that the waves could roll into each other. “Like having one spiral that’s a left-handed spiral, and the one next to it being a right-handed spiral, and then they’re spinning in opposite directions,” Brady explained in a phone interview.
The way he describes it, Brady’s “Munchausen Waves” sounds a lot like seeing the ocean while tripping on acid. Brady printed many of the components using a 3D printer, effectively bringing a renaissance-era illusion into the digital age. But unlike many of today’s digitally-projected illusions, Brady’s Munchausen Waves is a physical thing.
“We use the term 'the artifacts of artifice' in what we do,” Brady told CL. “It's an illusion that kind of gives itself away at the same time. A lot of what we do, all the mechanisms are there. It's all open for you to see. So these are not like projections or digitally manipulated things. These are actual physical objects moving in space that give you some sort of a perceptual anomaly that you weren't prepared for. And then, on further investigation, you can see all of the elements that come together to make that thing happen. And you can kind of rationally explain to yourself, ‘OK. Now I see how this works.' But at the same time, it doesn't take you out of the illusion. You can still appreciate the illusion for what it is and appreciate the science and technology behind what makes it happen. And that kind of brings you around to realizing that your experience of the world is through your senses. And that everything can be manipulated. And what you see isn't necessarily what somebody else sees. So there's a larger philosophical thing at work there…A lot of what we do is that kind of smoke and mirrors type illusion, but there's actual smoke and actual mirrors in our smoke and mirrors installations."
Although Brady’s Munchausen Waves is by no means small, it’s a relatively small piece of The Peninsularium, which Brady hopes will open sometime in 2022. Most of the installations will be located inside of 40-foot shipping containers, with approximately one installation per container.
"The containers get placed in kind of a grid that creates these courtyard spaces in between,” Brady told CL. “‘Munchausen Waves’ will be installed as a shade structure over top of one of these courtyards, so it's kind of an indoor/outdoor piece." At Kiley, the installation rests on 10-foot-long legs right next to the amphitheater.
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This article appears in Sep 30 – Oct 7, 2021.