IMMERSIBLES

Wendall--every other Thursday

Over the last ten years, immersive experiences have become all the rage. 

 

From the Wonderland exhibit in Melbourne in 2017

 

Don’t just look at the art, be surrounded by huge digital representations of it, walk through it, see a whole artist’s career as a moving slideshow. Hurry to The Van Gogh Experience!

 

 

Or “be” Barbie and enjoy “your own iconic Barbie-inspired hairstyle done by a Paul Mitchell Professional!” Then attend The World of Barbie “Sips After Sunset” (adults only) in her interactive world, in a local mall. This is pure marketing for the film, of course, but overall, what do these installations offer us? 

 

As of this morning, in addition to The World of Barbie, there are sixteen “immersive” experiences currently running in Los Angeles. There’s Bubble World—"an immersive experience designed to challenge the imagination. Step into a hot air balloon flight simulator, dive into massive ball pits, witness robot-led bubble shows, and much, much more!”

 

There’s The Subterranean Forest. “Stepping into what feels like a painting, your senses will immediately be activated by instruments like sound bowls and drums, plus watercolors, games, and so much more. Don’t miss this immersive installation!”

 

Dinos Alive, an “exhibition featuring life-size animated replicas in an immersive Jurassic venue. Walk alongside the massive creatures that roamed our world millions of years ago!”

 

 

There’s Explore Vatican: Immersive Experience! “Using cutting-edge technology, allow us to transport you to the heart of Europe, where you'll encounter a captivating, up-close encounter with the rich history and art of Vatican City. Prepare to be whisked away on a journey like never before to the wonders that await, as we bring the Vatican's treasures right to your doorstep!”

 

Terrifyingly, there’s also this. “Are you brave enough to revisit humanity’s dark history at the largest medieval torture museum in the country? Come explore over 5,000 square feet of exhibits containing hundreds of examples of torture, punishments, and execution devices. Find out how these contraptions were used with interactive activities and lifelike, silicon models (!! bold and exclamation marks mine!) depicting the action. Get your tickets for the Medieval Torture Museum with Ghost Hunting in Los Angeles!"

The interactive Medieval Torture Museum (!)

 

And perhaps, most hilariously, The World of FRIENDS™ —The One Near Long Beach. The one near Long Beach? How many are there? Inside this one, “Immerse yourself like never before by exploring interactive set recreations like Monica and Rachel’s kitchen, reliving the famous PIVOT! scene, and posing on the iconic orange couch in Central Perk. Plus you’ll get to learn about the making of the show with props, costumes and so much more! Now that’s what I call kick-you-in-the-crotch, spit-on-your-neck fantastic!”

 

Even the Titanic Experience has immersive elements, no pun intended.

 

Be on the Titanic?

 

So, what do these experiences have in common, besides their ubiquitous exclamation marks? And what draws so many people to them? Is it just a natural extension of our armchair culture, and of the growth of virtual reality technology—a way to travel or participate without traveling or participating? Is it a need to be part of something bigger than ourselves? Or is it just, at heart, the need for the best selfies?

 

And is there a difference between an immersive experience that takes advantage of art that’s already been created, like The Van Gogh Experience, and living art, which is an experience in itself, created by an artist, like James Turrell’s “Breathing Light,” which challenges our perception of the objects, colors, and distances around us?

 

One of the James Turrell exhibits at MONA in Tasmania

 

In addition to several of Turrell’s installations, both in the U.S. and in Tasmania, I was lucky enough to walk through Rain Room at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2015. This piece allowed visitors to “walk through a downpour without getting wet,” via motion sensors, making them “performers in this intersection of art, technology and nature.”

 

Rain Room at LACMA

 

I feel that these installations have actually challenged me and made me look at the world differently.

 

The entrance to the "Alice" exhibit in 2017

 

On the other hand, Wonderland, a 2017 exhibit at The Australian Center for the Moving Image, was pure fun. This exhibit had immersive elements, like having to enter by crawling through the tiny door, or attending the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party while surrounded by shifting images.

 

James entering the exhibit...

 

Then Alice lets us into the passageway

Entering and sitting down at the Tea Party

The scene shifts

 

On the other wall...

 

The exhibit also included the history of the depictions of Lewis Carroll’s Alice and the other  characters.

 

The Red Queen's costume

A room full of photos of Alice on film

 

Perhaps the most hilarious part of the experience was sitting for a photograph, which was then placed into an animated film of the famous croquet party. Obviously my husband James understood this idea much better than I, since he was smart enough to make a funny face, while mine is quite dull. 

 

A still of our animated adventures

I have always loved the Alice books and actually wrote a script about Humpty Dumpty, so it was certainly surreal to find myself beside him on a projected wall...

 

Me and my fave, Humpty Dumpty

 

Here's a video of our animated selves, if you have 36 seconds...

 

In the end, I think my favorite immersive experience is still a book, but how do you all feel about this trend and what it offers and perhaps, what it threatens?

   

     -- Wendall

 

 

"Curiouser and curiouser."

Jeff—Saturday

In the opening three paragraphs of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Alice watches a creature she thought she knew well, but dressed in a manner she’d never imagined, “pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.”   The instructive line for purposes of this post comes next in the tale: “In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.”

It sounds like the strategy of Greece’s ruling party. Although with this week’s twitter round by Greece’s Prime Minister dissing Turkey’s leadership, a more relevant excerpt may be, “But I don't want to go among mad people,” said Alice. “Oh, you can't help that,” said the cat. “We're all mad here.”

On Thursday, Greece’s two largest unions staged a 24-hour general strike of its 2.5 million workers and pensioners membership (out of an 11 million national population) in protest of the leftist-led SYRIZA government’s efforts to implement agreements with EU and IMF creditors for further bailout funds.  So far SYRIZA’s leader, Alexis Tsipras, has repeatedly found ways to pull rabbits out of Mad Hatter hats (just can’t resist those Alice references) that keep the people electing him despite his repeatedly doing precisely what he campaigns against.

In his pre-Prime Minister days he’d also been an architect of the sorts of street demonstrations and strikes that now mobilize against his government.  Today his party holds a slim three-seat Parliamentary majority and faces a vote today on violently opposed pension reforms that may erode that majority further.

Have no mistake, he is a very savvy politician, but has been unsuccessful so far in convincing opposition parties that joined him on other votes to overcome his own party’s objections, to sign on for today’s Saturday confrontation over adopting legislation billed as non-negotiable for the release of further bailout money.  But though he’s prevailed upon those parties for support in the past, most have refused.  Likely because they see no political upside to jumping on the SYRIZA bandwagon this time—especially since SYRIZA itself is campaigning to escape blame for that very vote!

Prime Minister Tsipras, right, with true far right coalition partner on left--to add to confusion.

How can that be you ask?  Well, permit me to refer you to a story in Moscow’s Sputnik, an admittedly suspect source of information these days. BUT it is consistent with a similar story I’d heard when Greece’s last general strike took place three weeks ago.  Here is the headline:

GREECE SYRIZA PARTY CALLS FOR GENERAL STRIKE PROTESTING AUSTERITY MEASURES.

Yep, you read that correctly. SYRIZA was reported as calling for Thursday’s general strike to protest against the very pension reforms it’s been pushing heaven and earth to get its opposition members in Parliament to join them in adopting!

Come on, Siger, you’re putting us on.  Nope, as I said, I heard this the last time around, and this time found the following written statement published in Sputnik represented as coming from SYRIZA:

"The people's struggle, social movement and workers' demands are the decisive factor for real democracy, for overturning the bitter legacy left by years of neoliberal policies. Through small and large labor struggles on a daily basis, the questions of an alternative way for Greece and Europe can be kept open. Hope can be retained. Extortion by employers and neoliberal political and economic centers in Greece and abroad can be repelled. It is very important today that workers demand recapitalization of pension funds… It is necessary to maintain social security…by means of raising employer contributions."   

It strikes me that SYRIZA sees the Greek people as akin to the speaker of this Lewis Carroll line, “Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

What I wonder is how does Greece expect to get out of this bottomless rabbit hole into which its government has plunged it?  There appears no plan, no rhyme, no reason at play, and soon I fear the people will find it’s not a dream or nightmare they’re living, but badly mismanaged and misrepresented reality.  What follows next?   As a Queen once said, perhaps “off with their heads,” and “sentence before verdict.”

As for where it’s all headed, here’s another Wonderland quote: “If you don't know where you are going any road can take you there.” 

But I know where I’m headed, and I won’t be late, for a very important date, with Stan at Once Upon a Crime in Minneapolis.

­––Jeff

PS.  Here’s a photo of two very special ladies who surprised me greatly at an event Thursday night in Chicago…Eide Gage and her and Leighton’s daughter Melina.