Photography by Lauren Allen
It’s time to reintroduce the phrase, ‘Art makes you feel.’
It’s usually parroted by expressive groans and eyes rolling skyward. Trust us, we know, but for this specific piece, it’s ironically the only way to describe the Mood Elevator.
It’s all done by its founder and creator, Chris Lattanzio. The premise for the Mood Elevator is simple: provide a brief respite from daily stressors for the community by way of elevating or relaxing their moods inside a colorful box installation that sits in the corner of Jesuit’s Historical Library.
Since 1999, Lattanzio’s career has sent him on quests of bending metals and manipulating light.
Previous works include Spirit of the Downhill Skier, selected by the official United States Olympic Committee for the 2006 Winter Olympics. In 2007, there was the Nobel Portraits for a Noble Building, featuring 51 Bay Area scientists who won the Nobel Prize.
In 2008, he began to play with art.
Last year, Lattanzio had just wrapped work on a pop-up, Level 7, an immersive art experience using light, sound and design to transport people on a space adventure stationed at Cypress Waters. It was his quarantine project, launching in 2022 and wrapping up in April 2023. In a conversation with his wife, he candidly talked about his latest work and what he would do differently while also doing something similar. She recommended that he share what he brings and what he did in the background to the foreground.
“Who would ever pay for that?” he asked her. “She said, ‘Well you would do it as a nonprofit?’ And then as she was leaving the room, she said ‘It could be called a mood elevator.’ Without her being aware, she came up with the title and everything and moved me forward.”
Lattanzio soon took the idea and ran with it, sketching out the first drafts of the Mood Elevator. The original size was the size of a regular elevator but Lattanzio knew he needed to widen it out to resemble more of a freight elevator.
Lattanzio went to Elizabeth Hunt Blanc, the museum’s director, to get approval. The idea was presented to the board of trustees. The president and principal of the school signed off on it, giving it a green light. Then, Lattanzio was dialing a Rolodex of previous clients, explaining the latest endeavor and scoring investments to further the project. He contacted Katie Garrison of the Dimmick Garrison Foundation, The Mike and Mary Terry Family Foundation and realtor Mike Geisler. With the backing of friends and investors, Lattanzio created a nonprofit organization to fund the project, clinching a $100,000 investment.
“We pieced it together. I mean, we got that in there, I’m not kidding you, I think there was $11 in the bank,” Lattanzio says. “By the skin of our teeth.”
Measuring 80 inches across, the elevator is flanked by two-inch steel tubes. Under the hood, Mood Elevator uses a DMX decoder, a control board that sends light signals to orchestrate the experience.
Like an elevator, there are two buttons for “up” and “down,” creating a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ scenario between two mood-altering experiences, each trip lasting five minutes.
The “up” button is for those wanting to alleviate stress. It features vivid warm lights and uplifting music mixed by Lattanzio’s friend, Mark Menza.
The “down” button follows a similar path but elects a more calming experience with soothing sounds also mixed by Menza and cool hues of deep cerulean, soft turquoise, mint green and vibrant green.
Either path, the Mood Elevator is designed for students, faculty and the community to briefly escape outside pressures.
The Mood Elevator mimics an elevator to a tee to transport users to different emotions rather than floors. People can experience the artistic elevator by sitting between its three walls for a multi-sensory experience.
On March 20, it was time to move the Mood Elevator into the Jesuit Library, coinciding with International Happiness Day.
Since becoming the new art piece on the block, the reception has been nothing short of an exception — literally. Lattanzio recounts how there are nearly 1,100 that go to the school and over 70% have stood in line for the Mood Elevator.
“One kid told me he’d had a bad day the day before. He had a test in the afternoon and he had a break in the morning and went through it,” Lattanzio says. “He stopped worrying about whatever. He wasn’t worried about the test. He was just present. That’s exactly what this is supposed to do.”
Faculty and the community have also become fans. Lattanzio also explains how one teacher will use the Mood Elevator twice a day. Another student will sit inside, but play his own music — opera.
“In my mind, I did not know how they were going to interact, they’re high school kids, but every time I go up there there’s someone in it,” Lattanzio says.
More importantly, this won’t be the last of the Mood Elevator. Lattanzio is currently in the works on two more copies as people have been requesting them in their own institutions. Lattanzio believes it could be installed in retirement homes, hospitals and more schools.
“Those kids have access to a lot of things and I’d like to put an elevator where they don’t,” Lattanzio says. “Our whole mission is to have hundreds of these out there and always provide a free experience.”
Jesuit began construction in the library during the latter half of May, and the Mood Elevator will temporarily reside at the Museum of Biblical Art near NorthPark Center until it’s finished.
While there’s no telling how long it will be there or if it will go on a couple of rounds of a grand “tour,” it’s safe to ask: Are you going up or down?
