Behind the Making of Mezo

May 29, 2018

Cody Tarpley and Grégoire Davenas give us an insight into their role in the creation of ‘Mezo’ – a futuristic 20-foot tall temple that welcomes its audience into a sonic and visual journey.

Mezo – short for Mesoamerica – was stylized as a Mayan temple. The team keeps these elements intact and appropriates a well-respected and ancient civilization where the audience can see what a Mesoamerican society would look like 100 years from now as if it was resurrected or it never died.

We asked Cody Tarpley, the Music Director for ‘Mezo’ and Multi-Platinum Producer, what he could tell us about the cycle of creation, destruction, and rebirth.

The different sonic stages Cody created are meant to pair the aspects of futuristic technology with authentic Mayan and Aztec sounds. The journey starts with peace and is quickly interrupted by an eruption. Then, it goes into a desolation period, which is lacking in energy, and it finally goes into hope. The idea is to reconstruct a new world where life turns to death and then recycles back into life.

When people are around the temple or are a part of the area in the experience, they are able to sink into the music emotionally.

Photography by: Maya Dondonyan

We asked Grégoire Davenas, the Design Director for ‘Mezo’, what his role was in the making of this futuristic art installation.

Grégoire created the visuals on the LED screens on the platform, the design on fliers and posters, and supervised the development of the website: http://mezo.world/, where the audience can find a clock that is synchronized with the temple, the content of the screens, and the entire experience.

I helped shape the synchonicity between every side of the experience, where you enter different chapters of the narrative. The website changes as you enter a new chapter of the cycle.

A big role in the creation of the visuals was understanding the vision behind Christian Falstrup, the Creative Director for ‘Mezo’. Communication between different artists was really important in building this world. Taking each concept of the cycle and each chapter of the narrative was incorporated into the making of the visual experience of ‘Mezo’.