I've been looking forward to Mesmerica for a while, ever since seeing its trailer on YouTube. I've been to the imax and have used a PSVR headset but never been to one of these domes ceiling projected film thingies but it sounded cool so I thought why not? I bought tickets for myself and my family and we planned to see it over the weekend in Plymouth at the Market Hall.

Mesmerica, John Wood's 45-minute immersive experience, is a fascinating journey through abstract visuals that left me captivated. For someone who appreciates the intricate beauty of sacred geometry, the ever-unfolding patterns and precise symmetries were a constant delight. The way the visuals evolved often brought to mind the organic complexity of fractals, each new iteration revealing deeper layers of detail and repetition, like a scene from Satoshi Kon's Paprika (which inspired Christopher Nolan's Inception) or Control (inspired by the non-Euclidian house motif explored in Danielewski's House of Leaves).

There were moments where the pulsating rhythms and swirling colours felt like a hyper-modern callback to classic Winamp visuals, particularly the more dynamic and energetic presets such as Milk Drop. Now that's a blast from the past, right? But for those of us who remember the even simpler joys of early computing, the show occasionally evoked the mesmerizing, endlessly looping patterns of an old skool Windows screensaver, albeit on a vastly grander and more sophisticated scale than something like starfield. It was a nostalgic trip wrapped in a futuristic package.

My youngest child was equally enthralled, utterly lost in the vibrant spectacle. However, my wife and eldest had a different experience. While acknowledging the visual artistry, they found the intensity of the colours a bit overwhelming and the synthetic nature of what was visualised caused them some anxiety. This really highlights the different strokes for different folks aspect of Mesmerica.

For me, and clearly for my youngest, Mesmerica was a truly wonderful and unique visual meditation. If you're someone who is drawn to the interplay of complex patterns, geometric precision, and an intense sensory experience, you'll likely find it as captivating as I did. But if you're sensitive to strong visual stimuli, it might be a little too much so might not be as worthwhile.

Overall, it was a yes from half of my family and no from the other half. That's not useful but there it is!

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