Immersive art was first introduced at the Venice Film Show in 2019, and the visitors could have fallen into the virtual reality world at that time, but it was not yet a full competition, but simply an extra entertainment for the festival participants. This year, this is a new direction: their own Venice Immersive program, strict juries, and out-of-court exhibitions.
Immersion art brings together many directions that allow the viewer to "push" into the work of art. Of course, there have been some areas long ago, for example, an immersive theatre, but this is an area that has flourished with the development of new technologies.
The programme's organizers point out that virtual reality is only one of the areas that participants use; the film festival deliberately abandoned any technical constraints; and on a small island in Venice, a whole city has been built in which you can dive into a metallurgy, play games and travel the world.
Of the 43 projects presented in competitive and complementary programmes, only some require a virtual reality helmet, among others, massive installations that surround the audience from all sides and hybrid reality solutions.
Traveling Virtual Worlds
A group journey in a fictional world is one of the most unusual adventures you can experience: it can be a beach, a forest, or a surreal space created by fantastic writers.
For example, a project called "Purpose of Humans: Earth's Pulse" invites viewers to see how the Earth's landscape is gradually changing and destroying, to try to live in another time — seasonal or geological. To feel dive, viewers enter a dark room, and they are surrounded by screens that are like a "golographic portal" that carry travelers in space.
You're surrounded by hypnotic images. The sound travels in space. Spring break, summer sun shines through leaves when they become amber and fall in a second. In a bizarre English garden, a pumpkin grows. Thousands of tons of steel split. Sand arrives and flows, and the rock retreats.
The person involved in this diving may be in the circle of life and death, or in any part of the exhibition, or in any part of it, or in any part of it, or in any part of it, focusing on one thing, such as the "life" of the river or a huge rock that is destructive and falling into the sea, or choosing different images.
In order to create their exhibition, the design team took landscapes and scenes out of people's lives in Norfolk and Glasgow in the UK for a year, but this is not a routine film. Authors used a 3D-scan interval to capture details that are not visible to the ordinary camera.
Another journey is a project called "All Unsaved Experience Will Be Lost", which opens the dark space of a ghost city that is crumbled from concrete and fog, and the ignominious threat that hangs over a deserted city remains a secret until the end of the journey.
This project is semi-documentary and built on the memory of a woman who refused to evacuate her hometown after a terrible disaster.
The film festival offers the work of "Rethinking Part I: Nissa" for those who love the true fictional stories. It sends viewers to the Grimm brothers' world. The story is based on "The story of who went to fear of learning." In virtual reality, viewers can feel at the site of a young boy who went to the woods, and they have to challenge their own fear and save the village.
Jumping into the past of the Cathedral of the Holy Mother of Paris and the youth of Coco Chanel
Not only space, but time is controlled by immersive diving, but a few of the works presented at the contest suggest that we go back to the past and learn how the people of that time lived.
One of these works is "The Eternal Notre Dame", a project that sends viewers to Paris at different times, from the 12th century to the present day. Together with a virtual tour guide, viewers will see how the most famous cathedral of Paris and the city around it have changed for centuries.
The creators point out that the development of the virtual tour took more than two years, with 25 virtual reality and history specialists being consulted by the team. The exhibition was carried out in an area of 500 m2 and could take up to 50 people on a virtual journey at the same time.
For those who prefer human monuments to have their own alternatives, French artists introduced the multi-sensor project "Meet" Chanel first met the perfumer Ernest Bo. This is the duet that created the famous Channel No. 5, one of the fashion house's business cards that has been preserved until our time.
In this project, participants will be able not only to return to the past, but also to get their heads into perfumed craftsmanship, feeling the smell of a real artist's workshop and what a French avant-garde it smells like.
Genocide in Cambodia and rescue on the island
Another unusual experience is playtime, but here the creators also offer challenging topics, such as "You Will Live, My Son" during the Khmer Rouge rule, which is based on the memoirs of Pin Yatai, the Quest puts the players in place of the genocide-affected father.
In solving puzzles, the participants are diving into the film stories of the victims of the genocide, learning about the past and culture of the country devastated by the brutal dictator Paul after. The main character is looking for his missing son and must survive for his family, told by the creators. The symbol of the healing of the nation and father is the enormous heart in the shape of Angkor-Wata, filled with life with every correct answer.
The authors of another project called "Emerging" are resurgent legends about the Titans, with which the encounter will determine life after death; unlike large-scale projects with multiple designs and sophisticated technical equipment, the author of the project is proposing a simple observational journey, in which the Titans will need to be tested, to interact with other players in order to enter a new world together.
Although the art based on modern technology is well developed, it does not yet have a full market and mass penetration, the handlers of the new Venice Film Festival programme hope that it can change over time, because today a new form of art and a promising industry are born.
There is no other festival in the world that devotes so much to presenting immersive as a new form of art, comparing it with prestigious artistic films, we raise the perception of immersive art as a real form of art, not just a technological trick.