Liz Rosenthal and Michel Reilhac: Enriched Reality at Venice Immersive

CHARLIE MELCHER:

Hi, I’m Charlie Melcher, founder of the Future of StoryTelling. Welcome to the FoST podcast. Today’s guests are two of immersive storytelling’s biggest champions: Liz Rosenthal and Michel Reilhac, the curators behind Venice Immersive, the extended reality section of the Venice International Film Festival, taking place now through September 6th. For close to a decade, Liz and Michel have put together one of the world’s leading showcases for immersive arts and media, from mixed reality to virtual worlds, XR, immersive installations and more. Each year they convene, on a small Venetian island, a global community of artists, technologists, and producers to experience and celebrate the evolution of immersive media. Liz and Michel not only have an impeccable curatorial eye, but also a valuable perspective on how immersive media has matured. They’ve witnessed firsthand the shift of VR from a few small experiments to a fully recognized art form one that is pushing the boundaries of narrative, world building, and emotional connection.

They’ve also seen the economic side evolve, from artists working on labors of love to today’s growing ecosystem of profitable location-based entertainment venues. And the work they select to exhibit paints a compelling picture of the future of the medium with the emergence of AI, the blending of live performance with immersive technologies, and the increasing emphasis on social communal experiences. Given all of this, I can’t think of two better guides to help us understand where immersive media has been, where it is now, and where it’s headed. Please join me in welcoming Liz Rosenthal and Michel Reilhac to the FoST podcast.

Liz, Michel, welcome to the Future of StoryTelling podcast.

MICHEL REILHAC:

Thank you.

LIZ ROSENTHAL:

Hi, Charlie.

CHARLIE MELCHER:

So excited to have you here. I’m such a large fan of the work that you do of the immersive festival that you create – the extraordinary things that you pull together every year in Venice. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit of the history of how it’s come to be.

MICHEL REILHAC:

It started in 2016 where we did a pilot edition on a small scale in a room at the casino on the Lido in Venice, and we compiled maybe 20 different experiences. It was a seated room where 50 people could watch those experiences, and it turned out to be quite a success that gave confidence to the Biennale president at the time to decide to really go for it. So we really started on what is called today, our immersive island on Lazzaretto Vecchio just off the Lido in Venice in 2017 with our first formal edition of Venice Immersive, which leads us to open soon, our ninth edition of Venice Immersive.

CHARLIE MELCHER:

And how is it perceived by the Venice Biennale? Because this is new work, this is radical stuff. Have you been welcomed or are you seen as lepers out on your leper island?

LIZ ROSENTHAL:

I think we are — well, I hope to think we are very well received. And the great thing about the Venice Biennale is the fact that it’s a multi-sector arts organization, and one of their missions is to encourage all types of art forms and they run many different types of events. There’s the film festival, which we’re part of, there’s the art and architecture biannuals, which happen every other year, and then there’s a dance, music and theater, and then there are also colleges for different sections of the Biennale. So it’s kind of almost a natural evolution that they would want to help exhibit and showcase and support this new art form.

CHARLIE MELCHER:

And how many pieces will you have at this year’s edition?

MICHEL REILHAC:

We will have 69 projects all together. 30 will be in competition, and they’re all either world premieres or international premieres. We will have 11 projects in our outside competition, best of section. These are works that have been premiered somewhere else since we — our last edition last year. And we’ll have five projects that are coming from our college immersive, which is a creative development workshop that we do every year, which was born the same year as we started Venice Immersive. And that offers an opportunity for first time or second time directors of immersive projects to come and develop them.

CHARLIE MELCHER:

And how has this grown?

LIZ ROSENTHAL:

Well, we started nine editions ago, and I think we were back in 2017 when I think immersive was very vibrant. It was mostly virtual reality that we were actually exhibiting on the island, and we’ve always been open to showing all types of forms and genres when it was virtual reality to start with. And the medium has really evolved. I think at that time it was seen more as a kind of R&D experimental form, and now we’re really seeing projects over the years that are going into major cultural venues that are being distributed across platforms that are attracting audiences. And we’re starting to see both the creative form and the form of storytelling and world building evolve, but also the fact that there is a market and there are audiences and established venues for the kind of experiences that we’re showing.

MICHEL REILHAC:

What has changed and evolved in nine years is the fact that there is today a market, and that market is what we call based on LBEs, location-based entertainment venues, where people go outside of their home to experience an immersive story, an immersive world where there would be a hundred, 150 or more people together at the same time in the same space. So when you can welcome 100-150 people, let’s say per hour, you are close to the economy of movie theater, and that becomes a relevant business model. Because of the island size, we can’t do a hundred people at one time, but the largest we will be showing is Blanca Li’s piece for 50 people while in the full size version of her work, she can welcome 200 spectators for each session.

CHARLIE MELCHER:

So describe for someone the experience of coming to the island. It’s such a unique venue.

LIZ ROSENTHAL:

It’s beautiful being on an island because it takes you into another reality. Going to Venice already is like being in an extra special otherworldly reality, and then you come to the Lido and then you take a boat over to our island. So it’s only three minutes on the boat, but it gives you a sensation of going on an adventure and a journey. And the other thing about the island is that we have these garden spaces. So we have a market as well taking part on the island, a projects finance market. So we have people who are coming to look to buy and finance projects. We have all the artists and studios and production companies who are there sharing their projects, and also all the other audience of the festival and people who come specially for Venice Immersive. So it’s really a special place for the global community to meet and to network and to experience and to talk about the projects they are seeing. And that really evolves and grows the whole medium as well.

MICHEL REILHAC:

For the 69 works that we have, you have different slots and you can book them from the moment you have an accreditation or a pass, you get a code and you book it online. There are docents — hosts — that welcome you at each installation, each place where there’s a project, and help you understand what the project is about, help you onboarding the piece with the headset if you’re not familiar. And in between those viewings that you will have booked, like Liz said, the garden becomes the meeting ground and one of the main reasons why the whole immersive community comes to Venice because it’s an incredible networking opportunity.

CHARLIE MELCHER:

Let me ask you about the evolution of the kind of work that you’ve seen over the years, the type of work that falls under your definition of immersive.

LIZ ROSENTHAL:

Many of the projects we are showing are still in virtual reality and mixed reality headsets, but a lot of them, I would say, have become more sophisticated in terms of the storytelling, the world building. They have a much more kind of cinematic feel, especially this year, whether they happen to be immersive video — so something that’s shot live action — or projects that are in six degrees of freedom, so you are stepping into the space and moving around it and interacting. They have a sort of more seamless narrative feel to them than I think before. We are also showing many more projects that are outside of headsets. So there’s an experience, for example, that’s on mobile phones called Ancestors, which is in our out-of-competition section, where you connect with up to 48 audience members and create six future generations. You create babies together by using AI and meeting and having photos of yourself and they combine to create other generations. It’s a really profound and thoughtful piece about what the future of our world and our connection and our humanity will be. So there’s a whole range of different projects that stretch from very narrative-based, more linear experiences, to projects where you are together with other people in virtual worlds, to projects where you’re in the real world, but you feel transported into another space by the objects and projections that are around you.

MICHEL REILHAC:

We need to say also a word about the integration of AI, artificial intelligence, with virtual stories. We’re happy to start seeing works that do not use AI for the sake of following the trend and exploring the tool, but truly blending it into the fabric of the story being told to create perfect simple emotions. Because up until now, what we were seeing with AI in VR was very much a sort of a fascination for the complexity and the agility of the tool of AI, but not really as a component of the technical mix to create emotion, empathy impact. A piece like Empathy Creatures for instance, is a piece that we’re premiering in Venice and that basically brings you into a space where you want to come closer to a bird. And it’s all of course driven by AI, but in such an elegant and delicate way that you forget — you forget that it’s AI. And this is something that we really see more and more embedded in different projects that we are presenting. I find it interesting when AI becomes a way of reconnecting with emotions through storytelling.

LIZ ROSENTHAL:

As we move into this incredibly synthetic and disconnected world, we have a number of projects that have a really handcrafted, handmade feel to them. And that’s something that I think we both really are so happy to see — see the human in projects. So there’s for example, a beautiful project from Lithuania called Creation of the World. It’s based on a very well-known Lithuanian artist, and this is really an exceptional work that takes you through this incredible painterly environment. You move very slowly through, and it’s a transcendental experience where you really consider the interconnectedness of our world and nature in this fantastical painted environment.

MICHEL REILHAC:

I would add two other things. One, the fact that the performing arts and dance in particular seems to be incredibly fit for immersive. We have a significant number of works that are choreographies brought to the immersive dimension “On the Other Earth” by Wayne McGregor, it’s a major, major choreography done on a circular 360 LED screen with super high definition, and the performers performing in the screen come out to you through a proprietary headset. It’s a brand new technology that is being shown for the first time developed by a university in Hong Kong. But beside this, “La Magie Opéra” is a French piece about the love and understanding of opera and of course, L’Ombre which is a piece by Blanca Li that mixes real dancers with virtual dancers. So this is a very interesting trend. Every year, Liz and I, with the help of Mike Salman, who is our producer and scout for this, we are stunned by how rich, how diverse, how varied the world of world builders and particularly in VR chat is. It’s so — every year we’re surprised how individuals with new team, no budget, no particular support or production produce worlds that are absolutely fascinating. And they made these worlds, some of them in just a few weeks or just a few months. Some of them do several worlds every year, and they do not consider themselves artists. They consider this as a hobby for them, but the quality of the imagination of the design, the virtuosity of how they build these worlds is absolutely remarkable. Each year we feel this is where the true inspiration is happening.

CHARLIE MELCHER:

Are these pieces allowing the guest to participate physically in them or are they more watching other dancers?

MICHEL REILHAC:

There are both. There’s another piece called “Collective Body” where you are invited to basically discover the physical dimension of your identity and of who you are through movement. And you’re doing this with a partner with other people that are in front of you. And through the progressive discovery of how you react to each other, you start developing a movement personality of your own. So in this particular case, you’re invited very discreetly. It’s not like you have to do a choreography, but it’s more your body language, how you move, how you express yourself when you speak, how you express yourself, moving towards someone or staying away from someone. All these body movements that we do not necessarily consciously do actually build a language that is indigenous to you. And this project ambitions to make you become aware of this, of the fact that we all have a movement personality that is our own.

CHARLIE MELCHER:

I’m wondering also about the trend for pieces being more social. I noticed when we all started to experience VR, so much of the work felt that you were being isolated from others. You were literally physically putting this thing on over your head. Now you’re talking about experiences for many more people. Do you see this as a trend of people being able to interact with each other, find connection through these types of immersive works?

LIZ ROSENTHAL:

I mean, I feel that the worlds, the Best of World section is probably the best example of that. These environments and worlds that have been built by the kind of creators that Michel and I were talking about earlier — really incredible ways of being embodied actually in fantastical environments or some of them are incredible music experiences. These world builders really understand how you create experiences that you are embodied with other people and you travel through. And some of them are more narrative-based, some are more abstract, some are more performative. So I think that’s the space where I feel is the most interesting in terms of social.

MICHEL REILHAC:

The trend towards making immersive a more social communal experience is a very strong one because we know now that the impact and the depth of the impact that one feels in a immersive experience is much higher and stronger than watching a film, for instance. It’s been proven that some people who have experienced strong moments within an immersive environment sometime later do not remember whether it was real or it was virtual. There is a lived dimension with everything you experience within immersive that makes it by definition something you want to share.

CHARLIE MELCHER:

And then what about the trend of giving people more agency where they actually have the ability to have impact on the story, on the world, on how things unfold? Are you seeing more of that or are we still working in linear experiences that are physically immersive but not changing?

LIZ ROSENTHAL:

I think some of the projects where there’s the most sophisticated forms of agency probably coming from game studios, and they’re very sophisticated experiences that last several hours. And we have some projects in our outer competition section that are really great examples of that. So for example, UK Studio, fireproof games, there’s a project called Ghost Town, which is an incredibly cinematic game, which has these incredible environments that you move through with this paranormal detective and you go into the Scottish Islands and the scenery and the seamlessness of the gaming experience is really profound. I think some of the most sophisticated work is coming out those studios, whereas I think before we saw quite a lot of clunkiness when it came to interaction design where people were experimenting with interaction and agency and story, and it was often quite a mismatch. It’s definitely something that’s developed.

CHARLIE MELCHER:

Are you feeling that the creative community is understanding the medium better now and has found helped to create or find its natural voice?

MICHEL REILHAC:

Definitely. Let’s say the 10 years that we’ve been witnessing the evolution of content, we’re seeing that through trials and errors, artists understand what works and what doesn’t work. For instance, if you consider live action filming 360 video as a director, when you’re going to have to make the decision, where do you place your 360 camera, the camera that is going to record literally everything around it? The placement of the camera is absolutely crucial. And that decision is something that people start to understand now that everything around the camera becomes relevant, the agency that you were talking about, and the interaction, the way the user experience is designed is absolutely crucial. And we do see, particularly in the successive works of a same maker of the same artist, how they learn from what worked and what didn’t work in their previous work. Little by little, I think we see artists getting rid of the gimmickry of interaction, and we’re seeing more and more agency and interaction being with a purpose. And that can only be done through trials and errors because there’s no precedent, there’s no Bible, there’s no methodology that we can refer to. We’re inventing it as we go. And this is why it’s such an amazingly incredible time to be involved in immersive because there’s nothing that we can refer to. We’re inventing the language.

CHARLIE MELCHER:

So let me switch topics for a second and go back to this discussion of the economics and the business of immersive. I mean, I think when places like Sundance and FoST and Tribeca were starting and yourself, there was no economic model whatsoever. I mean, everybody who was doing this was just clearly labor of love, working creatively to experiment and try new things. You’ve mentioned a couple of times that you think that there really has started to become a marketplace for the work. Can you describe what that is, where that is and how you see it growing?

LIZ ROSENTHAL:

I think still cultural subsidy in countries that have that kind of cultural subsidies are really important still in the financing and distribution of works. I think what’s become very difficult is the fact that the content division of the hardware and software companies have really stepped out of the artistic and narrative work. And that’s been incredibly difficult for all of these artists. It means that venues and location-based distribution is more important than ever. And it’s something that Michel and I held two think tanks about in our previous edition because we saw it as something that was a super important point of discussion with the experts and stakeholders we had at Venice that time. So we published two reports, which are on the Biennale website. The last one was focused around location-based entertainment — around how to build a robust way of touring and developing projects and also developing venues for the future.

CHARLIE MELCHER:

I’m curious to hear a little bit of the learnings and insights from the location-based entertainment paper that you did. Are there golden nuggets to share with our storytellers about how you might be able make this work by creating a venue and selling tickets?

MICHEL REILHAC:

There are two sides to the answer to this. One is that sharing an experience in VR, in immersive, is a wonderful thing for a group of friends, for a family, for more than one. As you go through it, it’s wonderful to say, “Oh, did you see this?” And “Oh, watch out. There’s something coming at you.” Or just making it a lived experience. And the interactive immersive stories experienced by more than one have a wonderful potential, a very strong potential, but also in the educational market, in the professional training market, not just entertainment. The other side of the answer is that we’re in a phase where a lot of the experiences that we are seeing tend to be the same, where you have a guide that takes you through an experience, and then you have the sites and then you have an educational dimension, et cetera. We’ve noticed this happening, but we are looking out for projects that are designed for communal experiences, but that do not necessarily abide by a restrictive pattern of dramaticy or progressive narration.

LIZ ROSENTHAL:

And I think there’s also the question of the technology. We don’t like to be driven at all by technology in terms of what we select. And we’re never choosing things because of it shows the technology. We’re showing it because of the story and the emotional connection you have with the characters, but it does enable for these multiplayer experiences to become more sophistication. I think that was one of the issues of these formats where there’s a guide who’s a non-player character, and your pixelated silhouettes, that’s the multiplayer aspect of it. You’re not communicating with each other, but you are together. And now we’re starting to see because of the real-time capabilities and the power of the headsets and hardware and software developing, that there are more interactive and engaging qualities that become closer to what it’s like to be in a VR chat world. But the fact is that in the real space, in a location-based entertainment space, it’s really hard to build things that are really, really rich in terms of renderings and interactions, and now that is becoming more possible. So I think we’re going to see much more exciting projects because the technology’s evolving.

CHARLIE MELCHER:

It is always a dance, right, between the technology, the abilities of the creators, and the audience. So I should ask, have you seen a shift in audience and their willingness and familiarity and comfort to be in these worlds, to explore them? Are you finding that they are getting more comfortable?

MICHEL REILHAC:

We see that the audience is incredibly receptive and curious, but it needs the difficulty, the technical difficulty of this is that it needs guiding. It needs someone to show you how it works, to show you how the headset can be set comfortably until the moment when technology will have evolved to the point where the headsets are not headsets anymore, but just glasses like the ones you’re wearing until they don’t disturb makeup for women until they don’t disturb your hair, until you don’t feel heat under them. Until that time, there will be a feeling that the clunkiness of the headset itself is a problem. And when people are able to forget about this and accept it, the experience is incredible and people do want to do it again. But the problem is the headset itself that is still in its first phase. So I have no idea when and if the technology is going to reach that point where we’re going to be able to have glasses that we can put in our pocket to pull it out when we want to have an enriched reality experience. I don’t know if that will come. I hope so.

CHARLIE MELCHER:

Oh, I think it will. I just interviewed for this podcast, one of the senior marketing people at Meta for their immersive tech and the success that they’ve had with Ray Ban, for example, amazing. And obviously it’s early days, but they’re now doing partnership with Oakley. And once we get to something that can really adapt to what we need as humans, instead of trying to force us to adapt to its clunkiness, I think there’ll be a beautiful takeoff in a way that’ll happen then. And all the work that you do to celebrate these creators will pay off because then there will finally be a large consumer audience for the content.

LIZ ROSENTHAL:

And it’s when in real life is blended seamlessly with virtual life. That is when things get really interested. And for example, the ABBA Show in London that’s using projection, that’s using the virtual that’s blending all of these things together and in real life performance and people embodiment, that’s going to get super exciting.

CHARLIE MELCHER:

Couldn’t agree more.

MICHEL REILHAC:

And you know what, Charlie, thinking about what we’re saying, I mean, it reminds me the feeling that I have that very often, more and more often now, instead of talking of mixed reality, augmented reality or immersive, I’m feeling more and more like talking about enriched reality so that we do not forget that we are human beings living in a physical dimension. We need each other. We need to have an impact on the world today more than ever. And I believe that what virtual reality in general, what immersive in general can do, will be good if it helps us in making this world a better world. I mean, it may be cheesy to say this like this, but I really believe that it’s our responsibility for those of us who work in any kind of capacity in this field of immersive. It’s our responsibility to make sure that immersive is not an escape, that it is a way of enriching our reality as human beings individually, but also collectively, socially, politically, that we can use these amazing technologies like AI and immersive to enrich the experience of being alive.

CHARLIE MELCHER:

I think that’s beautiful. So well said, Michel. I also use the term living stories, and I think in part because I’m very open to purely analog experiences as well as digitally enhanced experiences, all of these other forms of living stories that in many cases don’t have any tech or very low tech, it’s not about the tech, and I think people don’t realize it, but they’ve spent their entire lives where the majority of the stories they consume, they consume passively and only through their eyes and their ears, they just watch or listen, and they have no control, no input, no role other than perhaps an applause at the end or if that, and that’s not the way stories evolved. That’s not how we evolved as humans around the campfire to sing and dance and co-create and share our stories. And ironically, most storytelling has been, even when it has great content, has been in a form that’s just fundamentally disconnected from how we’re supposed to experience the world.

LIZ ROSENTHAL:

In a way, even though I think a lot of people see this as dislocating and lonely, and we are creating projects which deny that human existence. I feel the opposite actually, about the work that we’re doing in Venice, that Michel and I have really a mission to make sure that, and we question every time we are in our selection process, why we’re choosing a work, what it says, its mission, what its goal is, and this idea of being human and the handmade is still really, really important to us and what we show in terms of using these very conflictual technologies.

CHARLIE MELCHER:

Liz, Michel, I’d want to just thank you both for being on the podcast with me today. But more than that, I want to thank you for the community that you’ve been able to bring together for the role that you play by curating this festival and celebrating the great work. We mentioned in our conversation how it helps other creators stay up on what’s happening and how to improve their own craft. But I also just think the feedback that it gives to people, the recognition, the moment to be together as a community, it’s just so incredibly valuable. You’ve created a magical place and you truly are making a contribution to the field in very serious ways, in ways where the ripples won’t even all be visible, but are there. And so I thank you for that. I encourage, obviously, everyone that listens to this to go because it’s a magical adventure and yes, and I can’t wait to come back myself, so thank you.

MICHEL REILHAC:

We’ll see you in Venice very soon.

LIZ ROSENTHAL:

Yes, see everyone in Venice.

MICHEL REILHAC:

Thank you, Charlie. Thank you very much.

LIZ ROSENTHAL:

Thanks, Charlie.

CHARLIE MELCHER:

I’m Charlie Melcher, and this has been The Future of StoryTelling podcast. Thanks for listening. We’re proud to work alongside Liz, Michel, and others to discover and share the best of the best in immersive storytelling. To learn more about FoST, check out our website at fost.org where you can find more episodes of this show and subscribe to our free monthly newsletter, FoST and thought. You can also pre-order an advanced copy of my book, which is coming out this November from Artisan Books. It’s called The Future of Storytelling: How Immersive Experiences Are Transforming Our World. And if you enjoy this podcast, you are certain to love the book. The FoST Podcast is produced by Melcher Media in collaboration with our talented production partners, charts and leisure. I hope to see you again soon for another deep dive into the world of storytelling. Until then, please be safe, stay strong, and story on.