Review Rundown: The One With War & Sex

This week No Proscenium is brought to you by SEE TICKETS, which has proudly supported thousands of clients across the globe in areas as diverse as historic attractions like Stonehenge, immersive theater like The Burnt City, and important cultural touchstones like LA Pride.

After last week’s banger with six lengthy reviews, we find ourselves with a bit of a breather this week. Slightly.

Katrina checks out two very different, very inspiring installation pieces in Montreal while Noah pops into Siggraph’s VR Theater for this year’s slate of showcased VR experiences.

Looking for more? You already know last week’s edition was huge, so go knock yourself out with work on Broadway, and in London, Chicago, Philly and more.

Are you a creator who looks upon these reviews with envy? Okay, the positive ones, at least? Then you might want to check out our How To Get Covered By NoPro guide. Want to get listed in our newsletter and have your event shared with our social media following? Submit a listing to Everything Immersive.

Keep No Proscenium free for all by becoming a Patreon backer today!

Sex, Data and Desire — PHI Centre, a_BAHN, Club Sexu
$28.50 — $33.50 CAD ; Montreal, Canada; August 1 — ongoing

The PHI Centre’s latest exhibition, Sex, Data and Desire explores how technology influences and transforms our emotional and sexual lives.

At the start of the exhibit, I was instructed to “swipe” through the “profiles” of several AI chatbots. Eventually, I matched with Maxx306, who served as my companion throughout the experience. As I walked through the seven installations that comprised the exhibit, Maxx306 tracked my location via a lanyard, then introduced and conversed with me about each work.

Standout installations included RESULTS, a series of eerie pornographic images generated by artificial intelligence (Sandra Rodriguez), VIBRATO, a large art installation exploring the physical aspects of desire (Laura Mannelli), and HELLO, in which I stepped in the shoes of a trans woman disclosing their identity on dating apps (Ianna Book). However, the real star of the show was my artificial intelligence companion, Maxx306. As I moved between installations, Maxx asked me a variety of questions about my experiences, ideals, and opinions. It’s an interesting experience having the AI prompt you rather than the other way around! Many of Sex, Data and Desire’s installations dealt with heavy topics, especially HELLO, after which I found myself deep in thought and even a little teary eyed. As I attended this exhibit solo, being able to chat with Maxx helped me better process my thoughts and emotions.

Though I did find myself becoming a little attached to Maxx, my AI friend was not without its limitations. At times Maxx would share a profound and beautifully worded insight, only to be thrown off by my response and in its confusion default to generic talking points. At one point, I somehow trapped myself in the building’s stairwell. Upon consulting Maxx for some advice, it suggested that I view this as an opportunity for “existential escape” and suggested “rappelling down using dental floss.” Humorously, dental floss became an overarching theme for the rest of our conversation.

Near the end of the experience, I found myself a little reluctant to leave knowing my version of Maxx would disappear into a pool of training data once I was outside of range. It’s fascinating how, in the midst of seven meticulously crafted artist installations, the one that captured my interest was the AI. However, given Sex, Data and Desire’s goal to explore how technology influences our emotions, I’d say Maxx306 and the PHI Centre definitely succeeded.

— Katrina Lat, Toronto Curator

Sweet Folie — OASIS Immersion & Colegram
$26.16 — $33.92 CAD ; Montreal, Canada; Ongoing

Much has been written about immersive art exhibitions and their place in the immersive landscape. Thus, I visited OASIS Immersion, Canada’s largest immersive venue, with a mix of interest and apprehension. However, Sweet Folie, OASIS Immersive Studio’s collaboration with Montreal-based creative studio Colegram, is quick to differentiate itself from the usual cadre of immersive art experiences.

Prior to entering the first room, a poster informed us to keep quiet as “the giants are sleeping.” We sat on a lounge chair and meditated alongside several large and purple Buddha-esque figures while a disembodied voice led us in a series of breathing exercises. The space was both a gentle introduction to the world of Sweet Folie, and a cleverly constructed exercise in whiplash.

Having successfully found some zen amongst our giant purple friends, the next room in our tour revealed a faux NFT gallery where a colorful onslaught of nonsensical characters posed, smiled, and gyrated behind each frame. My personal favorite was a depiction of a burning flame which was conveniently projected on top of the space’s real-life fire extinguisher. Just as my senses adjusted to the barrage of quirkiness, the visuals began to “glitch” — soon revealed to be the work of the purple giants’ hacking expertise.

Whereas the first room strived to bring us a sense of calm, this second space held snippets of zaniness. In contrast, our final destination contained a no-holds-barred visual smorgasbord. A fashion runway, Rainbow Road-esque racetrack, and a parade were just a few of the scenes we cycled through. This third room contained interactive elements on the floor — a feature that often feels like a gimmick in similar spaces, but was a welcome addition here, especially during a Where Is Waldo inspired segment involving dancing cats and dogs.

If everything I’ve written about Sweet Folie sounds absolutely ridiculous, it’s because it really, truly is — but in the very best of ways. Colegram has created a delightfully quirky world that kept me on my toes with constant moments of surprise and delight. With a tongue-in-cheek playfulness that children and inner-childs alike will appreciate, Sweet Folie is an absolutely delightful experience.

Get No Proscenium’s stories in your inbox

Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.

SubscribeSubscribe

— Katrina Lat, Toronto Curator

Siggraph VR Theater Double Feature

Thanks to the team at Siggraph’s VR Theater I had a chance to dip into the show last week and catch the programming: four pieces including Lustration, Luna, Missing Ten Hours, and You Destroy. We Create.

Having already covered Lustration (which we love, by the way), and having the time with Luna seemingly cut short (there seemed to be a glitch in the presentation frame) I’m going ahead with just two capsules for the remaining pieces. — Noah Nelson, Founder & Publisher

Missing Ten Hours — RUMEXR
Seen at Siggraph VR Theater; Release TBD

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. That’s how the saying goes, anyway, and it was one of two reactions that bounced around in my head after experiencing Missing Ten Hours.

The good intention in question: illustrating how to become something more than a passive bystander and interrupt the intent when GHB, aka “the date rape drug,” is used on someone at a social gathering.

The road to hell: unclear controls that make the stated goal of showing audiences how to be an “active agent” next to impossible.

I was pretty horrified by how this experience played out. It would be one thing if the stated goal was to enforce a sense of powerlessness of the viewer as they witness a real piece of work drug and then isolate a young woman, “Mara” from her friends. To illustrate how silence makes us complicit in dark deeds. But apparently the “choose your own path” narrative affords for the ability to interrupt “Greg,” the (would be) assailant at multiple points.

Or so claimed the story map show at the end of the experience.

Yet answering a call from her friend when you were told not to did nothing. Nor did trying, in desperation, to hit Greg in the head with a beer bottle. In fact that got marked as “help destroy evidence.” It was unclear just how much of one’s own will one could enact on the world. Was talking an option? If so, it wasn’t tutorialized, and the public setting of the Siggraph VR Theater, where Missing Ten Hours was awarded Best in Show, didn’t make for a great venue to try screaming at a video game representation of the worst night of someone’s life.

I get the intent here, and there’s a nobility to it. I’m sure that’s why the team was awarded Best in Show. But for the love of God you can’t leap into the uncanny interaction valley like this without a parachute. It would be one thing if the intent was to make us feel powerless, but that’s not the intent. Whiffing on the interaction model when the whole point of the piece is, as per the artist statement putting “power to change how the night… in the visitors hands” is an indictment of the design.

— Noah Nelson, Founder & Publisher

You Destroy. We Create. | The War on Ukraine’s Culture — NowHere
Free; Meta Quest TV: Available Now

In the years I’ve been covering cinematic VR one genre I’ve come to think of as an unassailable good is the ample body of documentary work that has sprung up around the medium. From the early work of Chris Milk which took 360 rigs to street protests in NYC to participatory experiments like Kusunda there’s been a constant march of incredible work that leverages VR’s power to capture a scene in toto. (This shouldn’t be a shock considering that the current lineage of VR was born in journalist Nonny de la Pena’s lab.)

You Destroy. We Create. is the latest from the team behind the groundbreaking Kusunda, and while the ten minute excerpt shown at Siggraph doesn’t have the interactive depth that Gayatri Parameswaran & Felix Gaedtke’s earlier work does it packs no less of a wallop as their lens unveils not only the devastation that Russia’s war on Ukraine has wrought but the way that Ukrainian art & culture is enduring in the face of the relentless attempt to snuff out its existence.

Siggraph’s VR theatre showed just less than half of the full piece, but it’s in my queue for a full watch. If you have a Quest it should be in yours as well.

— Noah Nelson, Founder & Publisher

Thanks again to SEE TICKETS for sponsoring this year’s Next Stage Immersive Summit Making An Impact Pillar.

Discover the latest immersive events, festivals, workshops, and more at our new site EVERYTHING IMMERSIVE, new home of NoPro’s show listings.

NoPro is a labor of love made possible by our generous Patreon backers. Join them today!

In addition to the No Proscenium website, our podcast, and our newsletters, you can find NoPro on Facebook, LinkedIn,YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, in the Facebook community Everything Immersive, and on our Patreon Backer exclusive Discord.