The theme of the 3rd panel was the attractiveness and audience development of immersive venues. Speakers discussed a variety of immersive digital projects (interactive content, collective virtual reality experiences, large-format digital exhibitions) and operating models in a museum (Soufiane Bencharif, Institut du monde arabe, in a dedicated nomadic structure (Michael Couzigou, Art Immersive Box), via means of locomotion (Philippe Rivière with a boat, Art Explorer, and, a truck, MuMo) or via micro-Folies (Adryaan Martins). {WATCHTHE REPLAY]
Hosting an immersive experience in a museum (Soufiane Bencharif, Institut du Monde Arabe).
Concerning L’horizon de Khéops, produced by Emissive and hosted atInstitut du monde arabe (IMA) from June to September 2022, Soufiane Bencharif underlined the fact that the project had been defined extremely quickly (in 2 months) because the experience had already been conceived.
Previously, the Institut du Monde Arabe had collaborated in hosting other immersive projects, including The enemy with Lucid Realities, and the Cités Millénaires exhibition in partnership with Iconem.
Perceived as a summer project (because it’s more fun than a traditional exhibition), the IMA’s ambition was to attract a more family-oriented, tourist audience, with the added advantage that ancient Egypt is a theme that attracts people of all ages. As a result, an ambitious communications plan was implemented, albeit with one difficulty: it’s hard to get people to understand exactly what an immersive VR experience is all about.
As a result, a large part of the audience benefited from the surprise effect, with many visitors not expecting to be equipped with VR headsets or a backpack containing a computer (and perhaps wouldn’t have gone ahead with the experience had they known). Nevertheless, they were ultimately won over by the experience and the quality of the content. This was particularly true of grandparents who came with their grandchildren (50% of visitors were over 50, 65% came as a family, 94% satisfaction rate). A public relatively close to those usually welcomed at the IMA.
Soufiane Bencharif nevertheless pointed out a few points to watch out for when hosting this type of immersive experience, including:
- The question of pricing: this has been the subject of much debate at the IMA, which is committed to making its programming accessible, particularly to social audiences (the experiment has been proposed for younger audiences via their culture pass);
- Visitor reception organization: visitor equipment, helmet maintenance and upkeep (batteries, cleaning) can generate long waiting times;
- The equipment may sometimes be unsuitable for certain types of audience;
- Finally, the importance of providing a decompression chamber at the end of the experience, to offer visitors a smooth return to reality.
The question of pricing arrangements, raised in the context of Kheops, is particularly important in promoting accessibility. This accessibility can also be developed through more nomadic and territorial approaches, such as the Immersive Art Box, which seeks out audiences far removed from large urban areas and immersive cultural proposals.
Creating a nomadic, eco-responsible cultural offering (Michael Couzigou, Immersive Art Box).
Michael Couzigou presented hisImmersive Art Box project. In his opinion, the immersive cultural offer, too concentrated in Paris, requires the creation of a local immersive cultural offer. In addition, many cities are looking to revitalize their downtown areas, and this can be achieved through cultural action.
The idea behind the Immersive Art Box is to develop an immersive, mobile, temporary (1 to 2 months/rental) and eco-responsible space, offering experiences lasting around 50 minutes to the local public.
This 600 m² box would be entirely dedicated to immersion, and would therefore require the use of new tools, working on off-frame formats with people who have a vision of 360° filmmaking (which already exists in the video game and VR worlds).
Last but not least, this box would be designed with ecological and social ambitions in mind: construction as environmentally-friendly as possible, green transport and a goal of reintegration through employment by training staff to welcome the public in each city visited.
For example, the Immersive Art Box aims to bring culture to audiences who currently have far too little access to it, in the form of immersive experiences, with the intention of revitalizing territories around event-based cultural programming. Art Explora is also developing nomadic offers with MuMo and its Art Explorer catamaran, while envisaging very specific programming and targeted audiences.
Diversifying distribution models for immersive cultural offerings (Philippe Rivière, Art Explora).
As Philippe Rivière reminded us in his introduction Art Explora is a foundation with a mission of general interest, in particular to promote access to culture for as many people as possible and to support contemporary creation.
It was with this in mind that the MuMo (Musée Mobile) x Centre Pompidou truck was relaunched last June to set up in public squares to offer a real close-up view of the works (between 20 and 25 works per exhibition). The MuMo is already in its second exhibition (each exhibition is presented in 4 to 5 regions of France).
Art Explora is also developing theArt Explorer: a catamaran-museum project that will present an immersive exhibition in the 20 ports of 15 Mediterranean countries.
The yacht will also be accompanied by a cultural village featuring contemporary art exhibitions on themes specific to roaming. In this way, the arrival of the boat will provide an opportunity to develop a genuine “cultural festival co-created with local artists in each country”, to showcase the local scene and work with local curators and institutions.
6 months before the boat’s arrival, Art Explora meets with associations, NGOs and public authorities to establish a foothold in the region and diversify the audiences interested in the cultural program developed in the port and on the catamaran. What’s more, Art Explora aims to build long-term relationships with these populations, notably via an online academy: Art Explora Academy.
To illustrate the specific features of these different nomadic offers, a third experience can be mentioned: the Micro-Folies.
Develop digital spaces throughout France and internationally (Adryaan Martins, Micro-Folie).
Micro-Folie is a cultural policy scheme created in 2017, supported by the French Ministry of Culture and coordinated by La Villette, with the aim of bringing the nation’s cultural treasures to all parts of the country because “the Mona Lisa and Versailles don’t belong to Parisians and Versaillais”.
To this end, La Villette has created a digital museum, which requires only :
- A 100 m² space
- Internet connection
- A socket outlet
- A mediator
The Micro-Folie digital museum is now the largest art catalog in France, with 2,600 works of art listed. To select these works, Micro-Folie works closely with numerous cultural institutions. There are two main criteria for selection: the scientific and artistic interest of the work, and the quality of the digitization offered by the museums.
Micro-Folie’s aim is also to bring local communities to life, by relying on or even creating associations, and to encourage creativity, particularly by welcoming artists.
As Adryaan Martins explained, two modes of access to the digital museum are available. A “free mode”, which reproduces the experience of wandering around a museum, and provides more information on works that pique our interest, and a “lecturer mode”, which is aimed more at school audiences, and enables the lecturer to create his or her own collection to introduce the youngest visitors to the history of art.
Already 350 micro-folies have been deployed in France, and La Villette has a target of 1,000 micro-folies deployed by 2024.
These four projects are good examples of how immersive experiences can be vectors of attractiveness, for places and territories, but also how these experiences can serve the development of audiences, whether to attract a different audience to a place or to reach out to audiences far removed from culture with the help of immersive digital devices, whether itinerant or not.
Maxime Bohn
