This year, in honor of the sesquicentennial, Ottawa has undergone many changes, one of them being the addition of the new LRT (Light Rail Transit) line that connects the far corners of the city. It is not yet ready for use, but the station has already been unveiled in the form of a sound and light show. The idea was to walk through the currently somewhat empty tunnels which will someday be bustling with everyday city life, and experience the futuristic atmosphere created by multi-colored flashing lights and electronic music as you move deeper underground.
First you are met by darkness, but as you ascend the set of steps, you look around and see people, about eight on each side of you, standing before vertical screens, which are scanning them. You move toward a screen, and it scans your form, creating a digital copy of yourself, which it calls your “frequency”. You can then scan your ticket and download yourself onto your device, to keep. But this is only the beginning.
You turn to another tunnel and descend a long staircase, bathed in red light. The next tunnel is filled with pulsing white light, beckoning you forward, almost like a wormhole. Then you reach a fork in the road. Will you go left or right?
The path I went down had a tropical feel to it, and I can only assume that the one on the opposite side was the same. At the end of the path is a room in which strange geometric figures and optical illusions are being projected onto the wall. Then many small lasers, first red, then blue, appear all across the room and on people.
The next and final stop is the subway itself. Images are projected onto walls and lights flash consecutively, creating the illusion of the movement of a train where there really is none.
An escalator leads you up out of the underground and you end up back on the street, where it all began.