“Ekki Hugsa 360°” is a fulldome ambient-music show for planetariums and digital dome theatres.

Ólafur Arnalds and Torsten Posselt have an antidote for today’s hectic world: The undervalued notion of a calculated slowdown.

With “Ekki Hugsa 360°”, Icelandic multi-instrumentalist Arnalds and Berlin designer Posselt have created a transcendental, audio-visual experience – and discovered planetariums and media domes as a playground.

“Ekki hugsa” is Icelandic for “don’t think”, a message that found Arnalds’ at the right moment in his life: “A few years ago I was going through a bad patch in my life, suffering from anxiety. One evening, friends took me to an interactive theatre performance to take my mind off things. During the performance, one of the actors looked at me, hurriedly scribbled something a piece of paper and handed it to me. The message read: “Ekki hugsa”! That moment inspired most of my work in the past few years.”

Arnalds and Posselt have been frequent collaborators for a number of years but not until now have they so completely merged their two worlds of the audible and visual.

The origins of “Ekki Hugsa 360°” can be found in Arnalds’ generative software, Stratus, developed for his most recent album “re:member” (2018). Stratus controls two self-playing pianos that react to what is played on a third piano, creating otherworldly and often surprising textures of sound. Posselt employed similar techniques creating the cover artwork for the album, transforming Arnalds’ Stratus data into a generative artwork generator.

“Ekki Hugsa 360°” is an extension of this collaboration, exploring ways to make music tangible in the physical space and create a meditative atmosphere that allows the audience to let go and be present in the moment. “This whole thing is kind of an experiment. We’re not trying to make a spectacle but rather to take things down a notch. We’re inviting the audience to come with us on a slow journey, a trip into not thinking,” says Posselt.

“Ekki Hugsa 360°” premiered at Reeperbahn Festival 2019 at the Hamburg Planetarium. The planetarium setting allows the audience to have a more immersive experience than looking at a traditional projection on a screen by giving each person a full, unhindered 360° line of sight while reclining back in their seat.

As of 2021, “Ekki Hugsa 360°” is set to screen around the world inviting audiences to take a break from thinking for a little while.