Le Grand Est en immersion: When digital technology and culture pack the Épinal planetarium

In recent years, the convergence of the mediation and cultural industries has enriched the cultural landscape of Grand Est with immersive, digital experiences: the exhibition Le Numérique à l’Oeuvre at the Musée de l’Oeuvre Notre Dame in Strasbourg, the virtual reality escape game escape game at the Sélestat Library, mappings in the gardens of the Musée des Beaux-arts de Nancy or, of course, the many digital arts festivals, starting with Épinal.

These initiatives, which can be seen in particular at this edition of RICCI#3 in Épinal, show how a fast-growing regional industry faces operational challenges in structuring and accelerating the creation and distribution of immersive digital projects. These challenges include sustaining partnerships (from creation to distribution), controlling production and maintenance costs for digital devices, and offering flexible formats adapted to the constraints of multiple venues. The examples given during the event underline the value of these collaborations in guaranteeing a high-quality digital cultural offering and making it accessible to a wide range of audiences.

This year’s RICCI also highlighted the importance of collaborative practices in the development of this sector. How, then, do you create a digital project from the initial idea through to cultural valorization? How do you animate, develop and disseminate an immersive project, while taking into account the particularities of each territory? With these questions in mind, the RICCI was an opportunity for participants to explore ways of anchoring immersive innovation in their region, and making it a center of excellence in digital creation.

The challenges and issues of immersive creation as a medium for new images

The Immersive Creation Fund aims to stimulate the emergence of new narrative forms, while attracting the talents of tomorrow. These “new digital writings” are defined by their ability to renew modes of creation and reception of narratives, by taking advantage of digital tools. They encompass a variety of formats, from interactive narratives on the web and mobile screens to immersive XR or mapping experiences. And to reach fields as diverse as heritage, live performance, entertainment parks, brands and, of course, cinema.

The latter remains a privileged place for experimenting with these types of writing. All the more so given that, despite 180.76 million admissions in 2023, cinema attendance is down 13.1% on pre-pandemic years(source: CNC). These figures call for a reconfiguration of the offering to better meet audience expectations.

The first challenge is technological, if we are to succeed in deploying new offerings. It’s against this backdrop that initiatives such as those led by Arnaud Toussaint at Épinal’s Cinéma Palace point the way to a necessary reinvention of cinema. By investing in innovative technologies, such as the ICE Theaters® developed by CGR Cinéma, Le Palace not only offers films, but also introduces interaction that engages audiences differently. At the same time, the organization of live video game sessions in theatres is another example of this diversification of cinematic uses. These new approaches explore the boundaries between traditional cinema and new modes of cultural consumption, and open up promising prospects for the future of the sector.

Faced with the challenge of disseminating new formats, notably by taking cinema out of the traditional screen, innovative approaches such as narrative XR are emerging. Camille Lopato, founder of Diversion, goes one step further by fully integrating immersion into cultural venues. Diversion designs and installs immersive devices for prestigious institutions such as the Quai Branly in Paris and the Cinémathèque in Vilnius. Beyond the technical dimension, immersion can be a lever for reinventing the relationship between the public and the cultural space, and this is what Futura Cinéma, partner of this year’s event, is participating in by proposing hackathons to think about the future of cinema.

But one of the major challenges for these new digital writings, and more broadly for cultural venues, lies in access to the public, particularly in areas less well served by cultural infrastructures. This is where Art Explorawith its Ciné.Mo project, presented by Émilie Boucheteil. The aim of this initiative (along with the museum boat ) is to bring cinema and immersive experiences closer to remote audiences, by bringing content directly to their doorsteps in a roving truck. Ciné-Mo responds to a well-known problem in the cultural sector: that of the “last mile”. It’s an innovative model that opens up new possibilities for bringing culture to places where it isn’t always present, reaching out to a diverse and sometimes neglected audience.

Immersive creation is no longer limited to isolated experiences. It is reshaping the contours of the cultural landscape, offering more engaging narratives, unprecedented interactions and rethought venues. The technical, economic, creative and social challenges that accompany this transformation are numerous, but there are ways of overcoming them, thanks in part to partnership-based approaches.

Creating in partnership: Challenges and solutions for boosting cultural projects in the regions

Involvement in partnership-based approaches is essential to overcome the challenges of creating and deploying digital cultural projects, particularly outside Paris and within a region as vast as the Paris Region. Grand Est. This need for collaboration stems from a variety of issues, particularly those related to distribution. Two aspects in particular were highlighted at the conference: increasing creativity and optimizing local technical resources.

Partnerships between cultural institutions and art schools illustrate how complementary expertise can boost local initiatives. Although local government players are familiar with digital formats, they may lack the specific skills (either in-house or locally) to implement ambitious projects. It’s in this context that collaboration becomes crucial, enabling expertise to be distributed according to each individual’s core business.

A particularly inspiring example is that shared by Marie-Jeanne Gauthé, professor at Gobelinswho developed a workshop with École Supérieure d’Art de Lorraine (ÉSAL). This partnership has enabled students to learn about mapping, a discipline that historically was not part of the school’s orientation, which was more focused on narrative drawing. Mélanie Poinsignon, a teacher at ESAL, emphasized the need for training structures to adapt to technological developments, while remaining attentive to the expectations of institutional partners, in order to better serve students.

This iterative process not only strengthened the students’ skills, but also opened up professional prospects. Victor Soulié, a former student and now with Small Creative, for example, was able to take part in projects at Lyon’s Festival des Lumières thanks to this experience. Sophie Toulouze, from Nancy’s Pôle Muséal, also mentioned a mapping project born of the workshop dynamic, where ESAL students transformed an old aquarium located in the gardens of Nancy’s Musée des Beaux-arts into a space for artistic expression. This collaboration, launched in 2017, has given rise to several editions, both outdoors and inside the museum, with projections directly onto the collections.

Épinal, already renowned for its image-related history, has become a hub of innovation thanks to this type of inter-community initiative, encouraged by various actions taken by the Region , such as the one presented by Thibault Jorge, co-founder of the Femme Fatale studio, and Georges Magnier, director of museums for the city of Reims. Their cooperation, born of a workshop organized in 2022 by the Région Grand EstThe result was the creation of augmented reality filters inspired by the collections of Reims’ six municipal museums.

These projects show how activating regional networks can boost local cultural offerings and attract new audiences. In addition to art schools, we regularly hear of the need to integrate technology-oriented establishments such as engineering and programming schools. Faced with these challenges of innovation and networking, the question arises: what best practices can encourage the development of digital and immersive projects, taking into account the specific features of each region?

A few best practices for animating and developing a digital and immersive project?

The development of digital and immersive projects in cultural spaces, and particularly in rural or inaccessible contexts, raises the question of mobilizing resources and local roots to guarantee mediation adapted to the specificities of each territory. How, in this context, can cultural players structure a digital and immersive project while ensuring its accessibility, relevance and sustainability? In response, several of the Wednesday presentations at the RICCI showcased strategies and best practices rooted in the analysis of local needs and the pooling of resources.

1. Analyze local needs to anchor projects
   Camille Pereira, Cultural Director of the association Scènes & Territoiresemphasized the importance of a precise analysis of the needs of rural areas. This approach encourages the involvement of local players upstream of the project, through consultation tools such as mapping and participatory workshops. The Seille river enhancement project, for example, brought together local initiatives around a common natural heritage, creating a collaborative and unifying dynamic for local cultural and environmental players. Such an approach ensures that the immersive project is not perceived as an external contribution, but as an integrated component of the territory, adapted to the expectations and specificities of its inhabitants.
2. Flexibility of formats to optimize access and impact
   By developing immersive devices adapted to different locations, the AADN association and the AADN cluster also illustrated the importance of offering flexible, transportable formats, such as installations in planetariums. Cyrielle Tissandier, Production Manager, stressed the need to create artistic residencies capable of adopting the specific constraints of dedicated spaces, such as planetarium domes, while exploring the technical possibilities of projection and sound spatialization. This flexibility of format makes it possible to reach a variety of audiences, while limiting the costs involved in setting up and maintaining permanent immersive devices. To give concrete expression to this approach, AADN has launched a call for projects dedicated to creators wishing to develop immersive dome experiences. The call invites artists to propose projects designed specifically for spherical projections and augmented scenography, offering planetariums new opportunities for artistic experimentation.
3. Supporting local appropriation through itinerant systems
   Finally, the Micro-Folie initiative of the Communauté d’agglomération d’Épinal, under the direction of Bénédicte Hanot and Marc Genatio, highlights the relevance of itinerant solutions. A mobile digital museum featuring over 1,500 digitized works brings art closer to local populations, making it accessible outside major urban centers. This model demonstrates the ability of digital devices to meet the challenge of accessibility, while stimulating a sense of belonging and cultural participation among local residents.

These practices demonstrate that the successful integration of digital and immersive projects in territories lies in their ability to connect with local specificities. Through a collaborative approach, a grounding in local needs, and flexibility of format, cultural players can better ensure the sustainability and impact of their projects on the communities they serve.

Faced with the challenges of cultural innovation and territorial anchoring, Grand Est is increasingly positioning itself as a veritable laboratory for cultural immersion. At RICCI, it was clear that regional players are now succeeding in moving beyond the logic of isolated experiments to build immersive, engaging narratives, adapted to local specificities and a variety of formats – from planetariums to museums, via natural spaces.

These initiatives show that Grand Est not only welcomes immersive culture, but is redefining its contours, fully integrating immersion in the service of territories. It remains to be seen how far this dynamic can inspire other regions, and consolidate the region’s place in the national and European landscape of cultural innovation.

Baudouin DUCHANGE