NOWNESS Presents UVA’s “Harmonics”

In the House’s most immersive artistic collaboration to date, United Visual Artists celebrates Hennessy V.S.O.P Privilège in “Harmonics”, a kinetic light installation that takes the art of blending Hennessy eaux-de-vie into another dimension. An artistic documentary short by NOWNESS explores the parallels between cognac-making and the London-based art collective’s fascination with “time blending.” Like light from distant stars, each eau-de-vie in Hennessy V.S.O.P is a miniature time capsule that originates at a specific point in history of the Maison. “When we observe the night sky, some of the stars don’t even exist anymore, yet we still perceive them in our own space and time at a singular moment ,” says United Visual Artists founder Matt Clark, who provides the film’s voiceover.

Shot by London-based director Emile Rafael, the documentary merges the glitchy sounds and electronic beats of the installation itself with contextual images. A deep dive into the making of “Harmonics”, it moves from charting planets, constellations and the speed of light to technical renderings of Hennessy’s distilleries in Cognac and notes from the Tasting Committee. Opening and closing with abstract shots of the art installation in motion, with its spinning cylindrical tunnel of flickering red laser beams representing Hennessy eaux-de-vie, the atmospheric short plays with the viewer’s sense of space and timeand offering a virtual immersion into the artwork itself.