Immersive exhibitions often allow the audience to sit in a specific space, use digital virtual technology to synthesize and reconstruct the world, and create a new spiritual field for the audience through the integration of artistic situations. The sense of technology, interactivity and interest are the important characteristics of immersive art exhibitions, and they are also important reasons why they can attract the public more than ordinary art exhibitions. This "experience mode" replaces the previous "viewing mode", and the audience's feelings and experiences are placed in a central position, emphasizing the interaction between them and the artist and the work.
With the deep integration of technology, digital technology and art exhibitions, as well as the rapid update and iteration of media audio-visual equipment, immersive art exhibitions based on "experience" have gradually been sought after by Generation Z young people. Compared with the "mindfulness" experience of traditional art exhibitions, immersive art exhibitions endow artworks with strong interactivity through a series of digital technologies, and art assisted by technology can bring stronger stimulation to people's senses, fully mobilize the audience's desire for exploration and freshness, and the audience's role has also changed from passive spectators to active participants, from which they can obtain an immersive experience.
One · Madrid Tutankhamun: The Past and Present of Pharaonic Culture
Created by Sila Sveta, the exhibition is a unique immersive experience that has its world premiere in Madrid, coinciding with the centenary of the discovery of the tomb of the pharaohs, and can only be seen at MAD Madrid Digital Arts, Madrid's only permanent immersive exhibition center. The exhibition takes you to Ancient Egypt, where 1,200 square meters of projections and an extraordinary soundtrack trace the life of the famous pharaoh. Madrid Digital Arts (MAD) is the largest immersive experience in Spain and the second largest in Europe. Through immersive audiovisual projections that transport viewers to a virtual wonderland, immersive augmented reality technology, and holographic art, MAD gives each visitor an extraordinary immersive experience that will keep them engaged.
(Photo: MAD Madrid Digital Arts Exhibition丨Source: Internet Disclosure)
To commemorate the centenary of archaeologist Howard Carter's discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb, MAD has partnered with Sila Sveta to create this unique exhibit called TUTANKAMON. This immersive exhibition transports visitors back to the mystical world of Ancient Egypt, with magnificent audiovisual projections accompanied by music that bring the life of the famous pharaoh to life to life.
Visitors can discover the secrets of the Nile, traverse millennia-old river swamps and arid deserts, and experience first-hand the historical scenes where majestic temples were built. In MAD's exhibition, you can see the original colors and conditions of these buildings more than 3,500 years ago, as if you have traveled back in time and experienced the changes of history.
(Photo: MAD Madrid Digital Arts Exhibition丨Source: Internet Disclosure)
The 1,200-square-metre projection immersion area invites visitors to embark on a journey through the history of a mysterious civilization with the pharaoh Tutankhamun of ancient Egypt. In this magical time, we will be fascinated by the rich elements of culture, which continue to fascinate us like grains of sand covered in the desert and the mysteries diluted by the waters of the Nile.
(Photo: MAD Madrid Digital Arts Exhibition丨Source: Internet Disclosure)
The immersive exhibition ends with descriptions of Tutankhamun's journey to the underworld, based on paintings that appear in the funeral parlor of Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor. The largest virtual reality room in Europe (equipped with VR glasses + headsets), visitors will experience a journey back in time through the millennium, immersed in the universe of ancient Egypt.
Two · teamLab, Japan: Impermanence flowers floating in the eternal sea
teamLab is always exploring how humans make sense of the world, perceive boundaries, and perceive continuity itself. This exhibition includes artworks based on teamLab's conceptual hyper-subjective space. When the world in a moving image is cropped by a lens or perspective, the space in that image appears to exist on the other side of the screen, and the screen becomes the boundary. When people's point of view is fixed, they lose their sense of their own body, and because people's perception narrows to focus on only one point, it is easy to fall into a hypnotic state of losing intention and critical spirit.
(Image: TeamLab Exhibition丨Source: Internet Disclosure)
The image of the work based on the hyper-subjective space does not become a boundary, blurring the boundary between the viewer's space and the work. Because the viewpoint can be moved, it is possible to walk freely while looking at the image, and by not creating a focal point, the angle of view can be expanded infinitely. The eyes are not guided in any way, allowing people to look at the image as they wish.
(Image: TeamLab Exhibition丨Source: Internet Disclosure)
The flowers in the exhibition are constantly repeating the cycle of life and death, blooming and scattering under the influence of the visitor. By making people a part of the artwork, the boundaries between the world of the artwork and the world of the viewer are blurred. In the eternal present is constantly living and dying, and the flowers change every day with the real-time seasons. The art world gets brighter and darker with the sunset and sunrise over São Paulo. By actively perceiving the world with the whole body, visitors are expected to experience the continuity between time and space and the body created by the artwork.
(Image: TeamLab Exhibition丨Source: Internet Disclosure)
Three · Tuz Luka Illusionist: Immersive Cave Experience
Illusionist has created a mesmerizing exhibition in a cave in Tuzluka, and it is a fascinating experience to walk through different parts of the cave and witness the impressive atmosphere created through laser installations, projection mapping, and artificial intelligence. High-end technical elements were brought to the scene. From motion capture technology to flashlight tracking software, from laser tunnels to real-time AI holograms, technology and content are combined to blend digital art with the original walls of the cave.
(Photo: Tuz Luca Illusionist丨Source: Internet public)
Four · South Korea d'strict: SONGDAEMAL Light Exhibition
d'strict created the "Songdaemal Light Exhibition" at the port of Gampo in Gyeongju, South Korea. This is an interactive exhibition of heritage art held inside the renovated lighthouse. An automated lighthouse – once a human-driven lighthouse – has been transformed into a meaningful space that conveys maritime culture and regional history through a modern lens. An automatic lighthouse allows 4092 square feet of unused space to recreate the digital art exhibition space.
(Picture: SONGDAEMAL Light Exhibition丨Source: Internet Disclosure)
The exhibition includes immersive media art and participatory content that combines the history of Gyeongju, Silla's thousand-year-old capital, with lighthouse attributes, including local cultural heritage such as Gampo Port, the sea near the port, and Gimgeunsa Temple. Five areas and thirteen contents are based on the concept of "Millennium Light", which effectively presents the thousand-year past, present, and future of Gyeongju and Gampo through storytelling.
(Picture: SONGDAEMAL Light Exhibition丨Source: Internet Disclosure)
五 · 中东Orkhan Mammadov :美学的复兴
With the rise of the digital age, translating past experiences into the future is essential to save our legacy from disappearing. Orkhan Mammadov's exhibition "The Revival of Aesthetics" focuses on the representation of Middle Eastern cultural history to ensure a dialogue between the future and the past, between dystopia and utopia. Presented by Digital Art Theatre and co-curated by Generative Gallery, it aims to create imaginary carpets by combining data painting techniques, patterns, recognizable symbols, line simulations, and color data. At the Digital Art Theater, the exhibition becomes an immersive experience, accompanied by a special NFT drop based on decorative forms, such as as geometric patterns, floral patterns, and calligraphic shapes.
(Picture: SONGDAEMAL Light Exhibition丨Source: Internet Disclosure)
Six · Design Strategies for Immersive Exhibitions
(1) Sensory experience under digital empowerment
With the rapid development of science and technology, new audio-visual, artificial intelligence, 5G, AR, VR and other new media technologies have been fully applied and developed in immersive experiences. The ingenious combination of technology and traditional culture has developed into a high-quality form of experience, and the art exhibition creates a new exhibition experience with cultural connotation and full immersion for visitors through new media technologies such as light and shadow and interactive technology, installation art, AR, and VR. The exhibition environment of art exhibition halls is usually indoors, and the enclosed venue and airtight walls provide excellent conditions for light and shadow and projection, making it the best vehicle for realizing the immersive experience. The black blackout curtains can better express the light, projection, and hologram, bringing a new visual experience to visitors.
(Picture: Museum of Light丨Source: Internet Disclosure)
As the first digital art center in Paris, the Museum of Light includes 136 projectors with a total projection area of 3,300 square meters. Traditional art paintings are displayed here in the form of projections in front of the viewer in the form of classical music. Let the viewer really walk into the painting, in the light and shadow, feel the subtlety of the master's work.
(2) The narrative flow in the story scene
The innovation of media technology has broken the limitations of traditional storytelling and brought more possibilities for the construction of stories. Taking the story line as the exhibition line and reasonably arranging the relevant content of the works is one of the means to ensure the integrity and smoothness of the entire narrative process. In the immersive art exhibition, the story-based text narrative content can be transformed into the environmental information in the exhibition works, so as to build the atmosphere of the space and help and guide the experiencers to experience in different scenarios.
(Picture: "The Chased Eight-Foot Bird" 丨Source: Internet Disclosure)
In the classic immersive real-life space work "Eight Feet Bird" by the Japanese technology art collective Team Lab, the work uses the legendary Japanese mythical bird as the narrative element, integrates traditional Japanese aesthetic imagery and modern digital technology, and shows the theme of "the cycle of life and death", "instant and eternal" and other philosophical thoughts, guiding the experiencer to feel the wonderful relationship between man and nature, reality and illusion.
(3) Emotional resonance in real-time interaction
Art is also an emotional output. In the exhibition environment under new media, the creators delve into emotional experience and produce a series of art installations that express emotions through interaction. Depending on the time, number of people, and interaction methods, different real-time interaction effects will be generated, so as to create an emotional experience that can be interacted in real time. In this way, the viewers are no longer mere spectators, but also participants and creators of the exhibition.
(Picture: "Monster Amusement Park"丨Source: Internet Disclosure)
With its gorgeous display and all-round sensory experience, immersive exhibitions have become an eye-catcher for art exhibitions in recent years, attracting a large number of young audiences and setting off a wave of viewing on social networks. But at the same time, some exhibitions that blindly pursue visual and photographic effects have also been criticized as "Internet celebrity check-in exhibitions".
It can be seen that curators should not blindly pursue the application of science and technology or sensory stimulation, but should also guide the cultural thinking and spiritual awareness corresponding to the theme, convey cultural concepts, and reflect humanistic feelings, so as to make the immersive exhibition highlight the value guidance and cultural infiltration. For the audience, in addition to checking in and taking pictures, they should also constantly improve their own artistic aesthetics, and gain imagination and thinking outside the exhibition while immersing themselves in the exhibition. With the continuous development and innovation of technology, the field of immersive exhibitions will continue to develop. The application of technologies such as artificial intelligence, 3D printing, and robotics will provide more possibilities for immersive exhibitions and create more shocking and memorable experiences.