Extended reality takes visitors from the ruins of West Bank to 17th-century Amsterdam at Venice Immersive

From frivolous to serious, virtual nosy passersby to the impact of climate change, the groundbreaking festival draws to a close – but this year the exhibits live on The first installation one encounters on visiting Venice Immersive, the film festival’s reliably head-spinning showcase for new media, is a chest-high metal box fitted with an eyepiece and two speakers.

On peering inside you see a view of yourself from about 20ft above. You see the other guests walking past, a couple of pigeons on the ground.

When one of these passersby lingers at your side for just a moment too long, the obvious impulse is to glance up from the eyepiece in order to see what they want.

It is at this point that the experience blooms into a Lynchian nightmare. The passerby is not real – or rather, he’s only real in the box.

He wears a blue suit and speaks with a heavy French accent and tells a tale that would sit badly in polite company.

He says that I must have too much time on my hands, to stand hunched over this eyepiece for several minutes on end. “Why do people keep looking inside this box?

” he demands. “What is it that they hope to see? It is not reality. ” Continue reading...