With runs already completed in New York, Amsterdam, and Berlin, and features in Pitchfork, The Fader, and Consequences of Sound, virtual electronic band Gorillaz' digital pop-up installation event / project "Spirit House" is now open in Shanghai at the Jing'an Kerry Center. The project represents some fortuitous corporate synergy between a cartoon electronic dance act with a new album -- "Humanz", their first in six years -- and audio software-to-hardware innovators Sonos, with a retail shop in the Kerry Center, who've got a pretty fancy sound system to sell you. SmartShanghai went and got fully immersed in the fully immersive experience. Pictures after the bell.

*** "Spirit House", occupying a communal floor space in the North Retail Block of Jing'an Kerry Center next to a Karl Lagerfeld, is less a "spirit house" -- like a haunted house -- and more like a heavily tricked out one-bedroom apartment owned by someone with really rich, really absent parents. Entering the installation, guests go down a little corridor before entering the main room, which is the entirety of the piece. This "living room" is done up to resemble the living room of the Gorillaz themselves, or what it would look like if they weren't just figments of firmaments willed into being by Blur frontman Damon Albarn and Tank Girl creator Jamie Hewlett. It's the virtual world becoming real and it's meant to be slightly surreal. Guests are invited to browse through the "possessions" that the Gorillaz have in "their" "living" "room" "apartment": graphic novels, magazines, African sculptures (because this new album has "African influences" apparently), records from Rick James and more, a vintage typewriter, and a biography of Damon Albarn. Woo-hoo. Get your head checked by a jumbo jet. But the main thing is the hi-fi system and the accompanying sound module PLAYBASE. The "Spirit House" show is a video projection on three screens with state-of-the-art surround sound from Sonos enveloping the living room. Guests are admitted six-at-a-time to sit on the communal couch and get immersed. The show lasts seven minutes and cycles through two music videos from the latest Gorillaz record customized to the Sonos "Spirt House" PLAYBASE set-up. It's reminiscent of the 3D mapping in a dance club and the content is pretty similar. Lots of flashing, strobing things. Lots of things bouncing around, flying through space, punctuated with cameos from Gorillaz and the featured vocalists on these two tracks. For fans of Gorillaz, it's pretty neat. For fans of stereo equipment, it's also pretty neat. If you would like to buy me one of these systems I would accept it with aplomb and humility and I would watch the bejeezus of some Nicolas Cage movies on it. For sure Ghost Rider 2. Because he pisses fire in that one.

On Getting In

It's unlikely you're getting in. Running for just four days, June 1 to June 4, entry to the installation is by reservation only, and all available spots were snapped up within about an hour of becoming available. The hype is real with this thing. However, if you're a Gorillaz superfan (and / or are really into state-of-the-art speaker and home entertainment systems), you can roll on the site during operating hours of the Kerry Center and see if anyone is not turning up for their reserved spot. Organizers told SmSh that if people don't turn up to their RSVP, they'll let walk-ins get into the spirit.