In record time, exhibitions and immersive spaces have become a global boom that attracts crowds eager for new experiences around the world. The phenomenon is new, it is barely five years old, and it is fueled both by technological innovations, from virtual reality to 3D projections, and by the hangover of a pandemic that pushes the viewer to seek sensory experiences in the company of others who cannot experiment at home in front of the computer. Without reaching the figures of London, where last year there were forty experiences of this type, in Barcelona twelve immersive proposals currently coexist, to which three stable spaces will be added in the future in the old Teatre Principal, the Fàbrica Godó i Trias at l'Hospitalet and Interactive Arts
“Immersive” is the buzzword, the concept of the moment in the field of culture and entertainment, a kind of fetish that “if you add it to your project you are assured of added value commercially and in ticket sales.” , admits Jordi Sellas, director of the Ideal Center for Digital Arts in Barcelona, a pioneering space whose opening in 2019, in Poblenou, was received with more than skepticism. Today it has two other stable spaces in Madrid (Nave 16 de Matadero) and València (Bombas Gens), it has management agreements with the old Aribau cinema (The great library of tomorrow) and the Amatller house (Sorolla) and they are present alongside local partners in São Paulo, Berlin, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Warsaw, Thessaloniki and Athens, and their productions (Frida Kahlo, Monet, Klimt, Dalí cybernetic...) travel around the world, from Sydney to Singapore, New York or Montreal .
“When we started we were two and a half people working around an idea, but the beauty of the case, the truly powerful thing about this story, is that everything has been created from here. The reality is that Barcelona is one of the great world centers in the creation of digital arts. I would say that today we are in the top 3 in the world.”
But “immersive” is a misleading concept that is not always synonymous with cutting-edge technology or mind-blowing digital installations. “A theater show can be an immersive experience. In its beginnings, La Fura del Baus took people to an industrial warehouse and made them move through space, live an experience, while destroying cars. And today there are proposals such as Sleep no more, in a warehouse in Chelsea, where Macbeth is represented in a fragmented way on different floors of the building and the public wanders around as he pleases. That's also immersive," says Felype de Lima, creative director and designer of Tim Burton, the labyrinth, an "analogue immersive experience" that premieres on March 8 at the Victòria Eugènia palace in Montjuïc, the place that the new MNAC will occupy. . "For me, the immersive world implicitly carries the idea of play, of participation, of stimulating the sensory, the visual, the smells, the touch... A place where one can feel and enjoy within a created physical universe," he adds. From Lima. The exhibition dedicated to Harry Potter in Port Vell also falls within this analogue category.
Observed askance by critics and adored by the public, the success of thematic exhibitions such as Tutankhamun in the Ideal (185,000 visitors since mid-September) or those dedicated to art icons (there are so many of Van Gogh circulating around the world that even has its own entry on Wikipedia) are challenging the large museums and marking a change in trend in the consumption of visual culture.
“There may be those who rent a space and project, better or worse, animated paintings on the walls following a trend. And surely, as with all fashions, it is something that will pass; but not digital arts. They are the arts par excellence of the 21st century, and they include a very wide range of disciplines: ranging from video art to generative art from code, mapping, virtual reality, artificial intelligence... All of these tools are what we are interested in and with which we are working from Layers of Reality [the pioneering production company behind Ideal],” reasons Sellas, who insists on Barcelona's leading position in this field. “It's not that there are four privileged minds here, it's that we have been working in this field for 30 years and we have the greatest tradition,” he argues.
Traditional artistic spaces such as CaixaForum have realized the enthusiasm of the public and have opened up to immersive experiences, with their own productions such as Symphony, a journey inside an orchestra by Gustavo Dudamel. And more recently, heritage buildings such as Casa Batlló, in 2021, or more recently Casa Amatller, have been enthusiastically added. “Gaudí's architecture continues to play the leading role, but technology elevates the discourse and creates new narratives,” they point out from the Batlló house, through which more than a million visitors will pass through in 2023. And more significant: “The visit has been rated with an average of 9.1 out of 10 among more than 40,000 respondents, and 47.6% gave it a 10.” Part of its appeal lies in the incorporation of installations by contemporary artists such as Kengo Kuma or Refik Anadol, creator of the Cube piece with a presence at MoMA and responsible for two mappings on the façade. An initiative that this year they have repeated with the Argentine artist Sofía Crespo.
Although hallucinatory, multi-sensory installations are a recent phenomenon, they have illustrious precedents such as Random International's Rain Room, which in 2012 allowed visitors to the Barbican and MoMA to walk through a downpour without getting wet. The public longs for new forms of experiences and in this type of proposals "they do not find the barriers that they perceive in traditional museums, which are not economic [a family pack can cost 40 euros], but mental, self-perception, about what is going on." to find on the other side of the door of a museum. Here no prior knowledge is required to enjoy an artist. It is a barrier that has been broken before, for example, in classical music when the Three Tenors performed in a stadium,” recalls Sellas.
But returning to the immersive, for some time now another type of proposals are landing in Barcelona, with enormous popularity throughout the world, which have nothing to do with art or digital, but with experiences and content designed for be captured and shared on social networks. After Ikono, in the Arenas shopping center, in April, Bubble Planet opens in an as yet undisclosed space in Poblenou, a space full of bubble pools and cloud rooms with a philosophy close to an amusement park for the whole family but infinitely more playable on Instagram. It even has its own room dedicated exclusively to selfies.
“Time will put the proposals in their place,” concludes Sellas. “Now they all have the immersive seal because it works commercially. It's as if in the fifties we were talking about cinema. Sound cinema arrived, in color, in cinemascope... And there were incredible lines to go to the cinema because it was a cultural excuse to leave the house and see something spectacular. Cinema was not good or bad in itself, it was a proposal. Some films have remained and there are others that no one else remembered. The same thing will happen with this.”
