The Milwaukee Art Museum has a different yet equally provoking idea.

While static art holds its own importance, the MAM is displaying its kinetic (relying on motion or moving components) and Op (optical illusion based) art collection with "Sensory Overload: Light, Motion, Sound, and the Optical in Art Since 1945," a visual festival illuminated with lights, interactivity and optical illusions.,"”Sensory overload" carries diverse meanings for people. Some might visualize a giant bowl of Reese's Puffs cereal paired with Powerman 5000 tunes or nude skydiving.

The Milwaukee Art Museum has a different yet equally provocative idea.

While static art holds its own importance, the MAM is displaying its kinetic (relying on motion or moving components) and Op (optical illusion based) art collection with "Sensory Overload: Light, Motion, Sound, and the Optical in Art Since 1945," a visual festival illuminated with lights, interactivity and optical illusions.

"('Sensory Overload') is based on a body of work from the museum's permanent collection," said John McKinnon, curatorial assistant of modern and contemporary art at the MAM. "It was an opportunity for us to show objects that had not been seen in many years to show the strength of the collection in this area."

McKinnon said the MAM is giving these experimental art forms their due by giving people another chance to experience overwhelming pieces of art like Stanley Landsman's walk-in "Infinity Chamber" and Erwin Redl's "Matrix XV."

"The seemingly infinite amount of light by Landsman's walk-in 'Infinity Chamber' and Redl's 'Matrix XV' provides experiences of spatial illusion," McKinnon said. "'Infinity Chamber' is a room 8-foot by 8-foot with mirrors and lights which translate into an illusion of unending space."

LED lights dangling in a 50-foot by 25-foot room make up Redl's "Matrix XV." McKinnon said observers receive an immersive and palpable feeling of space.

"These works are prime examples of why 'Sensory Overload' is not just a static show, but one to be seen and experienced," McKinnon said.

"Sensory Overload" exhibits art that McKinnon called technological historical landmarks and models. According to McKinnon, art sprang from minds during the Industrial Revolution's shifting conditions and environments because "artists were responding to their new reality by using industrial materials as a new form of realism."

Light spectacles and euphoric illusions are only a slice of "Sensory Overload." Early film changed media and delivered another perspective to view art with, McKinnon.

"Projected images gave a new sense of time and space that was previously unavailable," McKinnon said. "The relationship to still objects changed forever after this development."

With the art of Victor Vasarely, Josef Albers and Stephen Antonakos on exhibit, "Sensory Overload" does what it suggests; it goes above and beyond what a normal person's five senses can handle. McKinnon said he hopes the MAM continues presenting modern examples of what innovative artists can create.

Sensory Overload opened Jan. 24 and will remain on display until October 2009. Tickets are $8 for adults and $4 for students.

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