Everything Immersive This Week (9/7/23)

We’re back with a mix of, well, EVERYTHING in the immersive sphere this week. Starting with a particular sphere, traveling around the globe, getting into some domes, dropping into Gotham City, and bidding a piece of tech adieu. Plus TRAILHEADS on a global scale: Sydney, Singapore, NYC, LA, Philly.

Missed last week's edition? It's right here.

If you have a tip email us at pitches@noproscenium.com with the subject line EITW and your picks might make it into our next edition!

ITEM ONE

Refik Anadol Takes Over the Sphere in Vegas

Is Sphere Entertainment Co.'s Sphere in Vegas the biggest digital art canvas in the world? Look, my name’s not Guinness but I will drink it. Preferably while taking in the renowned digital artist Refik Anadol’s work on the glorious, traffic mesmerizing surface of the Sphere which keeps bringing absolutely wild imagery to life on the Strip. Would that the MSG Sphere Studios in Burbank were wired up the same so that people coming in and out of Bob Hope Airport can get a little show or I can be entertained on the way to Target. 

But I digress: the Sphere keeps raising the bar on spectacle with what’s on the OUTSIDE, and that leaves us dying to know what’s on the INSIDE. Soon it will be U2, whose U2:UV show already has a pop-up experience — Zoo Station: A U2:UV Experience — at the Venetian. (Hey, if anyone from the Sphere is listening, Achtung Baby is my favorite U2 album, and one lifelong regret is that I never saw the ZooTV tour, just saying.)

Image: Machine Hallucinations: Sphere by Refik Anadol is the first artist commission on the MSG Exosphere. (Courtesy Sphere Entertainment)

ITEM TWO

Revisiting The Dark Knight ARG

This one goes out to both the old head ARG fans and those who missed the era. I09’s Sabina Graves, who keeps turning up in EITW we’ll note, has a lengthy interview with the creators of the seminal alternate reality game Why So Serious? that acted as a promotion for Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. In so many ways that ARG was the pinnacle of the form in that era, creating the illusion that the world of the movie was bleeding into our world. Coincidentally, many of those designers recently returned to Batman with the Augmented Reality game (the other ARG) The Arkham Asylum Files: Panic in Gotham City, from Animal Repair Shop, which has been getting rave reviews for its mix of augmented reality and board game.

ITEM THREE

Lucid Immersive Summit: Singapore 

The folks at Lucid Immersive, creators of the adorable Otah & Friends, who include Whisperlodge creator Melinda Lauw , are putting together the first immersive summit in Singapore later this month. The lineup is popping, with Vince Kadlubek of Meow Wolf, Takeshi Yamada of TeamLab, Andrea Salazar and Amy Novadnieks of Punchdrunk, Stuart Wee of ANDSOFORTH , the aforementioned Melinda Lauw and more. Oh, and our own Noah Nelson will be there giving a talk on building the global immersive creative community as well! All taking place on September 29th.

ITEM FOUR

Magic Leap 1 hits End of Life

All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. The Magic Leap 1, the augmented reality headset that was hyped to the moon and failed to reach orbit, will reach the end of its life when cloud services are shut off on December 31st, 2024. The ML1 was hailed by large swaths of the tech press as the next big thing, sucking the oxygen out of the still gestating VR life cycle, only to launch as something that was more dev kit than consumer electronics. The company, which has gone through big leadership changes, is looking to make a dent in the enterprise market with the ML2 now that Microsoft has tapped out of the HoloLens business. We just feel bad for the handful of creators who made actually interesting work on the platform who now own bricks and won’t be able to share their work anymore. If anyone knows of legacy preservation programs, hit us up. (Via Road to VR )

ITEM FIVE

NoPro’s CALL SHEET for September 2023 

Bookmark this one.

Our monthly roundup of professional opportunities in immersive is up on the site and will update weekly.

If you are posting a job, casting, festival deadline, grant, or other opportunity please reach out to callsheet@noproscenium.com with details. Note: we need a canonical link to the information to publish our capsules. Also: paid opportunities only, no unpaid internships or roles.

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(Photo by Austin Chan on Unsplash)

TRAILHEADS

Earth Edition Festival: Billed as a festival of “Eco-Consciousness Interactive Dreaming for Better Futures” is currently being constructed on the campus of CalArts and will offer immersive environments for you to dream up wildly positive futures. While all kinds of events are programmed throughout the ten day event, the centerpiece is the Dream Dome Experience designed to spark a vision of your ideal eco-future. $15-40. Sep. 15-24. VALENCIA, CA

ABSURDITIES - This is one we’ve known about for a while and are going to be bringing back a review of soon. ANDSOFORTH presents a tour of the multiverse through a 6-course Omakase meal that is promises to be both delicious and texturally exciting. S$208.00 Ongoing. SINGAPORE

EVERYTHING IMMERSIVE is the home of No Proscenium’s show listings. To check out our feature and review coverage visit NoPro.

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