Month: February 2020

Dead City – an interactive VR and opera experience

The Dead City is an interactive VR and opera experience that combines elements taken from the film narrative, game mechanics and opera. The plot and libretto refer to Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s 1920 work with the same title. The original opera, written a century ago, took place in Bruges, while the contemporary Dead City is Warsaw during the pandemic: empty, gloomy and nostalgic. Paul, the protagonist, grieves for his recently deceased wife by visiting places significant for their relationship.

We enter the couple’s house, go to their favorite cinema Iluzjon and for a date in the Palace of Culture. We pass by the Rajkowska’s palm tree, which used to be a symbol of their first vacation, and continue to Warszawa Powi?le railway station, where they met for the first time. We look at the city skyline from the Intercontinental hotel and visit the Savior Square. Dark depths of the Vistula river mark the end of our trip – right here under the ?wi?tokrzyski Bridge, is the place of their farewell. Paul dissolves and transforms into a morphing, black void. We hear the voice of his beloved Maria, saying her goodbyes: “Everything is a memory, and nothing dies because there is nothing. Stay calm, stay peaceful, nothing dies because there is nothing and there is everything”. In the alternative version, the protagonist is Maria.

The user is led by a narrator, who represents the inner voice in the user’s head. At some point the user becomes the protagonist of the opera. Depending on their choice at the beginning, the user is Paul or Maria. The user has the possibility to move within the scenes — levels, using a continuous movement technique. They follow an internal voice that is placed in their “head”. The voice leads them to places where they interact with given objects that run holograms and pieces of music. This is how they get to know the story.

The starting point was experiencing pandemic. Director Krzysztof Grudzi?ski asked himself questions about what we leave behind in this modern world. He watched videos showing people suffering from Covid-19, where they said goodbye to their loved ones, shared their fear of death. Suddenly, after times when we lived flooded with information, at a high pace, chasing numbers of likes and followers on Facebook, and in a sense of fake closeness built by the online surroundings, we are left alone facing crucial and ever-changing, archetypal notions such as “death” or “love”. The question arises: what is left of our “digital” record.

The world of the experience is Warsaw in the times of pandemic recreated in 3D. We use well-known, recognizable locations like Cinema
Iluzjon, the Palace of Culture and Science, the National Museum in Warsaw, the palm by Joanna Rajkowska (Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue installation), ?wi?tokrzyski Bridge, promenade and steps by the Vistula River.

Warsaw buildings recreated in 3D graphics
Warsaw buildings recreated in 3D graphics
Warsaw buildings recreated in 3D graphics
Warsaw buildings recreated in 3D graphics

Somebody About You – experiencing the body as a medium

In Somebody About You, the voice needs the body of the viewers to exist. Aneta’s voice is embodied in the viewers’ reactions, each time in a different form, in the bodies of different viewers. Aneta, who is terminally ill, was invited to adopt the role of the narrator of her experience. Therefore, her experience is also a documentary project, Aneta will replicate in the viewers’ bodies. In this way our film will constitute an extension of her life. The viewers, in turn, experience a transfer, they offer their bodies that will become a medium.  On the border between the imagined and the proposed, between the creator and the viewer, biology and technology, the world of the living and of the objects, between the living and the dead, a hybrid being emerges, combining a human and a work of art : humart.

Somebody about you will be rooted to a much greater extent in the strategies of performative arts. That is why the experience is treated holistically. It doesn’t limit itself to the image in the headset, instead, it also makes a use of the viewer’s situation. It doesn’t dispose of the reality outside of the headset, it includes it in the matter of the image. Thus, the experience becomes real, it is an integral part of the viewer’s life. 

The image is not intended to imitate, but is treated as a tool to influence the physical reactions of the viewers. A good example of this is the scene with the graphic ball. Its purpose is not to present a picture, but to move the body of the viewers, who will follow it with their eyes, and thus with their head, neck and the whole body. Director Micha? Stankiewicz is primarily interested in how graphics can affect the mobility of the viewers’ bodies and thus elicit emotional states. 

The narrator’s voice occurring in the experience is treated as framing and camera movement, but also as an opportunity to layer layers invisible to the eye. The way in which the voice will speak and what it will emphasise  will also resonate in the viewer’s body. That is why we invited a teacher trained for working with non-professional actors to work with Aneta. 

The viewer is always a partner for director, a co-creator. That is why in his  work he invites the viewer to observe him/herself and focus on his/her feelings. In Somebody About You, this observation of the impulses coming from one’s body is the essence of experience, the content of Aneta’s message. The viewer’s body becomes a medium, the heart of the message, while the individual reception of the viewers constitutes an element of randomness characteristic of generative art. 

Materials showing the activities of the project team during production
Materials showing the activities of the project team during production
Materials showing the activities of the project team during production
Materials showing the activities of the project team during production

A journey for two around a trauma that must be confronted

Deep Dive is an intimate virtual reality storytelling experience in which we wander with Magda on a wild riverbank. Her daughter’s unexpected cry for help brings her back to her goal. She pursues it, but the river cannot be overcome. In a moment of heartbreak, an amazing encounter occurs. Magda’s mother walks up to her. Aroused, Magda begins to lead her through fantastic thickets and gloomy trees in search of a passage. The mother watches her daughter mysteriously, but does not help her. The only way back is in their past and leads the woman to confront her deepest fears and regrets.

Out of love for her own child, Magda faces the most painful loss of her life by wandering the wild riverbank where fears and hopes mingle with reality.

Deep Dive is an intimate virtual reality storytelling experience in which we wander with Magda on a wild riverbank. Her daughter’s unexpected cry for help brings her back to her goal. She pursues it, but the river cannot be overcome. In a moment of heartbreak, an amazing encounter occurs. Magda’s mother walks up to her. Aroused, Magda begins to lead her through fantastic thickets and gloomy trees in search of a passage. The mother watches her daughter mysteriously, but does not help her. The only way back is in their past and leads the woman to confront her deepest fears and regrets.

Out of love for her own child, Magda faces the most painful loss of her life by wandering the wild riverbank where fears and hopes mingle with reality.

A frame from the “Deep Dive” experience, dir. by Mi?osz Hermanowicz

Grief is a powerful emotional experience, a process that changes us. Deep Dive is the story of Magda, who is going through a pivotal moment of mourning for her mother. Being a young mother herself, her experiences with her mother mirror her current situation. A reflection that forces her to confront her own fears, regrets and hopes. This scheme allows us to focus on what builds and what counters Magda’s strength as a woman.

The set design is a metaphor for Magda’s emotional world. We wander with her through this world to the rhythm of her experiences. Deep Dive’s narrative challenge is to use the power of virtual reality to create a sense of presence in this world in the audience that is simultaneously consistent with Magda’s story and emotions. To this end, camera movements and editing were worked on together with choreographer Eliza Rudzinska and cinematographer Yann Seweryn using principles of movement psychology. The theme and the way the story is told create an experience of a psychological fairy tale maintained in an atmosphere of magical realism.