First Learnings From Tribeca Immersive 2024
The exhibition at Mercer Labs is far from over, yet with over 1,000 viewers coming in daily, the number of new learnings and observations is already significant
The 2024 edition of Tribeca Immersive in partnership with Mercer Labs is still on view at 21 Dey Street until July 29, so if you’re in town don't miss your chance to experience this special show created with Memo Akten & Katie Peyton Hofstadter, Liam Young, ScanLAB Projects, Wen-Yee Hsieh, Sutu, Robertina Šebjanič & MONOM. The exhibition consists of eight exclusive large-scale visual and sonic artworks rotating in three chapters. Each piece represents a distinct style, originating from a life-long practice of artists whose expertise spans architecture, film, animation, sculpture, theater, dance, music, and audio.
Here are some of the initial insights from this year's edition, followed by questions I’d like to focus on further as we observe an ongoing shift towards various models of immersive art and entertainment experiences. If the momentum continues, this may be the beginning of a larger cultural evolution in how we connect with experiential stories and world-like digital exhibitions.
How We Approached This Year
A lot of how the final programming at Mercer Labs came together was a result of three stars aligning: the fit for the curatorial direction of the show (I wrote about it a little bit here); the creative and production independence of the artist (we had three months to produce); and the artist's ability to collaborate with the venue within the architectural and technical parameters of the space.
Since all the works were created or adapted specifically for Mercer Labs, it required a fair amount of flexibility and the ability to work quickly with a profound understanding of the benefits and challenges of atypical exhibition spaces like an 8K infinity room, or a 5-wall LED immersive space that can accommodate hundreds of viewers every hour. It was also crucial to understand that we create for a space that pretends to be a purely audiovisual canvas but actually behaves like a piece of living architecture, incorporating elements of live theatre reminiscent to some extent of the Sleep No More audience journey.
We knew that if we teamed up with artists with extensive technological experience and a cross-disciplinary creative DNA, and relied on the talent and artistic confidence of directors that we knew could work in a 3D environment without even seeing it, our chances of success would increase. It seems that strategy paid off.
What I’ve Learned
That designing immersive art shows for large-scale digital venues requires a whole new approach on almost every level. This includes how you select the artists, how you work with them on the actual experience, how you design and use the physical space, and what you offer your audiences before and after the show. On a more detailed level, none of these elements feels like working in a traditional cultural venue, let alone a festival.
Today I know that a new immersive exhibition model is a necessity because what happens in this particular space is a completely different experience than what you would have in a theater, opera, art gallery, museum, or concert hall. The nature of the audience journey is somewhat similar to participatory theater but with much less friction and interaction demand on the part of the viewer.
It may be worth adding that although many of our artists worked in VR/AR before, the experience we created at Mercer Labs, has absolutely nothing to do with how we experience stories in virtual reality. I would say it is actually the opposite of what happens when you put a headset on your eyes. I suspect this is good news for the VR/AR community because it means these two branches of immersive art and entertainment can peacefully coexist. The question is, can they coexist in the same space without cannibalizing each other? I'm sure different curators will have varying opinions on this.
The collective character of the immersive journey at spaces like Mercer Labs is very powerful, at once ancient and somewhat novel, with added value in its openness, accessibility, and lack of prerequisite professional preparation that often intimidates people from entering new cultural and technological topoi. While today it might seem obvious or easy to curate for those emerging zero-spaces, in the long run, it may become an actual challenge. In my opinion, the openness and accessibility of immersive venues only means that as a curator you need to work much harder to make the experience meaningful and worthwhile because your actual audience is, well, everyone.
What Surprised Me Most
That almost everything we planned actually worked. Of course, there are questions and ideas on how to improve, but overall, what was on paper translated into what we saw in the space.
The audience reaction to the show was overwhelmingly positive regardless of the audience's provenance (industry, art, festival audiences, tourists, families with children, …). People connected equally well with all three chapters and stayed in the experiences longer than I expected. Being mindful that a sense of novelty and the power of top-notch technology are responsible for a big portion of the audience's excitement, it was still quite clear that the reason people actually stayed in the space was the quality and character of the artworks we presented.
All the works were welcomed with plenty of enthusiasm (Sutu – “Bellissimo!”), and were appreciated for various reasons (originality, quality of design and execution, narrative power, musical puissance), but there is one aspect that remains the common denominator to people’s emotional reaction to the show – the unquestionable and undeniable beauty of the artworks. I believe that it is the unexpected experience of beauty that created a shift in many viewers’ reactions: instead of taking a selfie in the space for the sake of having something to post on social media, people were taking pictures because they recognized the true value of the artwork and wanted to be part of it.
This, in my opinion, is a major difference between commercial immersive offerings and immersive art shows that we shouldn’t underestimate in how we think about creating audience engagement in large-scale digital venues.
More to discuss
The official program was accompanied by a series of artist talks and events, like the conversation we co-hosted with our friends Neil Carty and Katy Yudin from Cosm about how to successfully collaborate with commissioners and curators in museums and digital venues (ICYMI: stay flexible, stay open, make it a long-term relationship). As the process of curating digital and immersive experiences often requires substantial adaptation of the work, or even a top-down creation of a new piece, and involves a number of risks on the commissioning side, the way we establish successful relationships with creators is more important than you can imagine.
Cosm just opened their first state-of-the-art venue, and I can't tell you how much I envy those who are in LA to witness it firsthand.
Another highlight was the mind-boggling live preview of Blockparty Bodega, an incredible multi-platform game by iNK Stories which, for me, is an example how creatives should approach worldbuilding and the creation of digital twins. If you’re interested in the topics of solidarity, fairness, and joy in the process of creating immersive games that overlap with real reality, you should start tracking Navid Khonsari’s and Vassiliki Khonsari’s project right now.
We also hosted the pilot edition of The Circle, a new incubator program designed to support top future digital talent through a network of industry associates, including Accenture Song, ArtScience Museum Singapore, Cosm, Culture House Immersive, EY Metaverse Labs, Google, Meta, MIT Open Documentary Lab, Onassis ONX, PHI Center, Runway, and Zero Space.
I have to say, it was a fascinating experiment to question the traditional “pitch market” model and create a tailored program for three teams who were paired with hand-picked mentors and trainers focusing on their projects in a highly personalized environment. The list of participants and associates is long and stellar, and so I hope I'll get to share some more learnings from this year's program on another occasion. The program is still not over, as the idea of ongoing support assumes continuation after the festival, but it seems that the first results are already visible.
