I have been dying to talk about the Van Gogh Immersive experience since 2019, but COVID put the brakes on that for a few years. I was lucky enough to attend the Van Gogh experience in Montreal in 2019. And believe me, it is an entirely immersive experience. It changes how we view and experience art and culture. Let me explain.
Image if you could bathe in a world, not your own, but through the lens of Van Gogh. Designed by Annabelle Mauger and Julien Baron, the experience builds on technology and ideas from the ’60s by filmmaker and photographer Albert Plécy.
Examining different filming techniques, Plécy set out to create a means that passively immerses the viewer. Instead of the viewer looking up on an image, the image attracts and draws in the viewer, renouncing their thoughts on viewing within their defined experience. Instead, the digital imagery creates an experience around the viewer. Sound synchronizes to the paintings and drawings. The imagery is not simply in front of you but surrounds you like a blanket. It is on every wall, floor, in front and behind, at different angles and everywhere you look.
The Imagine Van Gough project creates continuity from each image, linking them together to form a visual narrative. The images are projected on a complex structure that occupies the entire exhibition space. As the viewer wanders about, they become lost in a dream, liberated by the constraints of a large painting on a wall. The viewer is now wrapped in Van Gough, free to move as they wish and focus on whatever angle they choose. The projection shifts your view from the work, showing the fine details, where you feel like you can see every brushstroke. You get different perspectives and incredible details of the work, where you reach out to try and touch those paint strokes. With all the various angles, the art seems to move around with you.
The music is created in unison and is calming, soothing to the point that one wants to simply sit down on the floor and just lay there watching the walls like watching the trees on a sunny afternoon.
The KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid, is at the core the Imagine Van Gogh. Do not misunderstand. This straightforward idea – immersing oneself in artwork – is quite complex and detailed. The technology behind the project is advanced. To feel like you can touch the paint strokes means the images and technology to capture and project Van Gogh’s work is done at the highest level. Capturing these historical paintings is not simply taking a picture of Van Gogh’s paintings with an iPhone. Instead, each angle of the work is tweaked to adjust to the angle of the projection, and everything is calibrated and sequenced together.
For the viewer, the experience is tightly sewn together. People meander through moving at a peaceful pace, observing each wall, every angle, and corner. The floors change patterns and shift from color to black and white or from far too wide angles. It is peaceful, tranquil, and additive. It becomes such a happy place that many sit down and just relax. If I could have brought a picnic blanket and eaten my lunch quietly, I would have happily spent the day there. It is within that user experience; the viewers experience and absorb that world of Van Gogh. (We even have some videos at the bottom to show the sound)
Trade shows are networking events; every OEM must find ways to draw people into their booth. Many of us have gone to events where speakers, baristas, motorcycles, beer, or other attention-grabbing items are brought in to entertain and draw a crowd.
The Imagine Van Gogh project shows us new ways of experiencing something. Imagine if I wanted to learn about inkjet technology. Instead of just a giant printer in the room, I was placed in an immersive experience that showed every droplet placed on the material. Or I felt like I was swimming in a dye bath of colored pigments. Instead of talking about technology or products at trade shows, what if we were immersed in it?
The same goes for brands. What if you could immerse the consumer in the stitching of footwear or the seamless knitting that makes up the compression clothing. Remove the actors and sponsored athletes and make the product the story. Immerse us, the consumers, what makes the product unique and how we can view it in new ways. Make it fun, energetic, or tranquil, but create a world where we see the product in a new light, within a new lens, and experience the brand with fresh eyes.
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