Framing the Virtual: New Technologies and Immersive Exhibitions

1. Blockbuster Immersive Art Exhibitions

In 2017, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden organized a major retrospective of Kusama Yayoi’s Infinity Mirror Rooms that enjoyed a six-venue tour of North America. The exhibition was a blockbuster hit; it attracted thousands of visitors at each museum who were willing to wait in line for hours to experience forty-five seconds of Kusama’s work (Sutton 2017). The immersive installations promised portals into alternate worlds with dazzling lights and the artist’s signature polka-dot dreamscapes, where visitors could capture themselves as reflections in an infinitely expanding universe. Kusama was catapulted to fame for a new generation—some art lovers, some not—many of whom were unfamiliar with her decades of work as a painter, sculptor, performance artist, and designer of immersive installations. Whether or not visitors appreciated the full extent of Kusama’s artistic practice, they flocked to museums to experience her work in person, and, crucially, to post about it online.

In the past decade, immersive art exhibitions have exploded on the international stage. Van Gogh-themed immersive experiences were developed by numerous companies in Europe and the United States in the 2010s; their worldwide popularity was inspired in part by appearing as a stage set for yet another virtual world—an episode of Netflix’s Emily in Paris in 2020. Immersive exhibitions on other historical artists followed suit, with Frida: Immersive Dream, Monet: The Immersive Experience, Immersive Klimt Revolution, Imagine Picasso: The Immersive Exhibition, Dalí: The Endless Enigma, and others debuting in major cities across continents. In 2016, Meow Wolf opened its flagship space in Santa Fe, which allows visitors to climb and crawl through a mysterious house and portal to another dimension. In 2017, the Color Factory launched interactive, playful spaces designed by artist Leah Rosenberg to saturate visitors in rooms of color. Other organizations formed to support artists working with experimental digital technologies, including Artechouse (est. 2015) and Superblue (est. 2019) with dazzling displays of high-tech art. In 2018, teamLab’s Borderless opened in Tokyo with 107,000 square feet of intertwined galleries for the collective’s cutting-edge digital projections. The Frameless immersive art center, devoted to staging encounters with digitally reimagined masterpieces, opened in London in 2022. And in 2023, André Heller’s avant-garde amusement park Luna Luna was resurrected from its 1986 installation in Hamburg to a Los Angeles warehouse for a six-month run that attracted 150,000 visitors (Purić 2024).1

Although immersion itself is not new to the history of art, recent developments in technology and communication networks point to a new relationship between immersive art and what Kate Mondloch has identified as the attention-experience economy: a cultural and economic system where immersive art installations and digital experiences are designed to capture and monetize audience attention and engagement. This Special Issue seeks to draw critical attention to these developments as they continue to unfold—from deepening our grasp of present-day immersion to proposing a continuum between shallow tech gimmicks and meaningful artistic encounters. By way of introduction, this editorial reflects on the history of immersion in art, the ways in which new technologies have solidified immersive art as a key element of the attention-experience economy, and emerging research trends. It is our hope that the diverse contributions and perspectives within this Special Issue will shed new light on both the pitfalls and the potentials of immersive art exhibitions in the years to come.

2. Immersion in Art History

Philosophers have explored ideas of immersion, perception, and the nature of reality for thousands of years. In many cases, immersion relies on metaphors related to water—a plunge into an environment that offers an all-encompassing sensory experience. Today’s scholars rely on this metaphor to examine immersive experiences with art: Fabienne Liptay and Burcu Dogramaci argue that immersion is centered on “the idea of a liquefaction of space, which makes the experiences of ‘immersing,’ ‘melting,’ or ‘plunging’ into a medium possible in the first place (Liptay and Dogramaci 2015). Brooke Belisle approaches immersion as “a state of engagement in which viewers or users feel transported into and absorbed by the world of representation” (Belisle 2016). And Panayiota Demetriou describes how people are “almost bathed by different stimuli” when they are “haptically, visually, auditorily, and narratively incorporated into the action” (Demetriou 2018). Immersion is intricately linked to this understanding of experience as flooding a person’s senses to such an extent that they are transported to a new reality.

Immersive experiences are often understood as physical, but these experiences cannot be separated from the cognitive. Oliver Grau approaches immersion as “an illusory setting where time and space are one” (Grau 1999). With this definition, the phenomenon of immersion can be experienced in visual art, virtual reality, the imaginary, or in a situation of intense emotion or focus. Katja Kwastek advocates for “the emotional and cognitive intensity of an experience” as a measure of immersion, which is often overlooked in studies on illusory or immersive spaces (Kwastek 2015). Indeed, as Janet Murray argues: “A stirring narrative in any medium can be experienced as a virtual reality because our brains are programmed to tune into stories with an intensity that can obliterate the world around us” (Murray 2016). In today’s art history, there is ample ground to explore both physical and cognitive experiences of immersion as modes of interaction with artworks. Immersive experiences might engulf visitors in a fully interactive physical space, plunge them into a new cultural setting or language, or capture their attention in a stirring narrative flow.

In any case, it is important to realize that these experiences build on a long history of immersive art. In his foundational article, “Into the Belly of the Image: Historical Aspects of Virtual Reality”, Oliver Grau traces this phenomenon to Second-style painting in Pompeii, where people were inserted into narratives that were “meant to encourage an emotional, ecstatic participation” in Dionysian cult communities (Grau 1999). He also explores the Sala delle Prospettive in the Villa Farnesina in Rome, where the Renaissance master Titian was said to be “unwilling to believe that it was a painting” (Vasari [1568] 1978). Similar lore surrounds panoramas in the 19th century, where some visitors were “afraid to collide with the horses” when they visited the rotundas that attracted 100 million visitors between 1870 and 1900 (Grau 1999). Immersive experiences continued to be developed with stereoscopic technologies in the 20th century, including 3D cinemas and IMAX that were designed to complement the curvature of human eyes and modes of visual perception. Soon after, artists began to develop installation artworks that directly incorporate viewers into the narrative, from everyday settings (such as Claes Oldenburg’s The Store, 1961) to imaginative worlds (such as Kusama Yayoi’s Phalli’s Field, 1965), socio-politically charged spaces (such as Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro’s Womanhouse, 1972), and remote landscapes (such as Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels, 1973–1976). By the 1980s, immersive experiences could be expanded into the digital realm with developments in Virtual Reality and the internet (such as Jeffrey Shaw’s The Legible City, 1988–1991). Advancements in projection mapping and algorithmic programming in the 21st century provide even more space for dazzling displays of digital content (such as teamLab’s Planets, 2018). Despite the transformation ushered in by our digital era (which we will turn to in the next section), it is important to note that the development of spectacular immersive exhibitions is part of a long-standing tradition of creating engaging, multisensory experiences for audiences.

3. New Technologies and the Attention-Experience Economy

Though the phenomenon of immersion has been explored widely, comparatively little attention has been paid to the role of technology in facilitating these experiences. Technological developments in the 20th and 21st centuries were instrumental in developing spectacular immersive exhibitions: panoramas, 3D cinemas, IMAX, Virtual Reality, projection mapping, and other materials and techniques contributed to immersive experiences that have attracted floods of visitors. More critical attention is needed to fully understand how these technologies—especially “new” technologies across time—create physical and emotional experiences of immersion.

Today’s surge in immersive art exhibitions, however, demands a spotlight on cutting-edge communication networks, which continue to revolutionize how we experience and interact with art. Major advancements in mobile phones and apps since the 2010s have set the stage for new forms of experiencing and communicating about immersive exhibitions: iPhone 4 was released in 2010, which included the first front-facing “selfie” camera and Retina screen (Coulstring 2023), allowing for social media to become fully mobile and ingrained in day-to-day life. Instagram launched the same year as one of the first social media platforms designed for mobile devices instead of desktop computers (Cara 2018). Other image-based apps such as Snapchat followed suit, which has remained one of the most popular social media platforms in the world since its launch in 2013 (Dean 2024). These elements of networked communication are entangled with the technologies that produce immersive exhibitions. As Gloria Sutton argues in her essay for the Infinity Mirror Rooms exhibition catalog, Kusama’s immersive work “does not hinge on technological developments in film but on the introduction of network-based models of communication” (Sutton 2017). It is no coincidence that blockbuster immersive exhibitions opened in the 2010s, responding to the rise in accessible, mobile social media. People now experience immersive exhibitions through their phones—both as documentation of their experience and as a portal through which the immersive experience occurs. Laura Lee terms this phenomenon “hashtag art”, or “contemporary exhibitions that are designed to be visually spectacular and thus lend themselves to picture taking and social media posting” (Lee 2022). Some experiences are even designed to be seen through the phone camera lens, which often results in “better” photographs than the in-person view. Blockbuster immersive exhibitions are intricately linked to our use of phone cameras and social media, aligning them with the technological tools that produce the physical sense of immersion.

The increasing entanglement of communication networks with the development of blockbuster immersive art exhibitions ultimately results in the commodification of attention itself. In an article for the New Yorker, Jackson Arn writes that “all art makes some initial pitch for attention. In immersive art, sustaining attention isn’t the means; it’s the point, the work’s way of justifying itself. As such, the pitch is almost always the hard sell—intense, elemental sensation, immediately delivered” (Arn 2023). In many ways, immersive experiences are the realization of Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, “where the tangible world is replaced by a selection of images which exist above it, and which at the same time are recognized as the tangible par excellence” (Debord 1970). To Debord, spectacle becomes the vehicle for commodity, an abstraction of commerce by way of images that capture society’s full attention. This commodification is nothing new—the mass popularity of stereoscopic technologies in the 19th century is one example of images functioning as an accessible, individual, and portable commodity (Belisle 2016). However, it is the dematerializing effects of today’s late capitalist structure that require renewed examination of how companies “mine consumers’ emotions, integrating audiences more fully into corporatized productive routines, profiting all the while” (Mondloch 2022). Social media platforms generate billions of dollars by capturing users’ attention and keeping them engaged on their associated apps, a commodification that does not directly result from an exchange of goods or services. This engagement is deceptively passive for the everyday user but ultimately draws from their personal data and online interactions for massive corporate profit.

Immersive exhibitions have become a vehicle of a new attention-experience economy, or a commodification of people’s time and attention on communication networks alongside ephemeral experiences that often require steep admission prices and membership fees.2 In today’s digital age, an immersive art exhibition is not complete without the chance to capture and share the experience online. Sensory overload and virtual transportation are just the beginning—the real thrill comes from documenting every dazzling moment for your social media followers. Artists are often caught in the middle, navigating a desire to attract new audiences while critically engaging with pressing socio-political concerns. The artists involved in immersive exhibitions risk becoming what Panayiota Demetriou terms “imagineers”, simultaneously acting as “an interaction designer, an experience designer, a user experience researcher, a facilitator, a connector and networker, a translator, a project manager, a visionary entrepreneur” while also cultivating their work as “creative, artistic, curious” (Demetriou 2018). As artists navigate the digital landscape, they face a growing challenge: creating experiences that are both visually stunning and critically significant, rather than just profitable spectacles. The far-reaching impact of the attention-experience economy blurs the lines between corporate and artistic interests. To truly understand today’s blockbuster immersive art exhibitions, we must examine this complex interplay from multiple angles.

4. Framing the Virtual

This Special Issue, “Framing the Virtual: New Technologies and Immersive Exhibitions”, takes on a wide range of topics that intersect with these introductory themes. The title itself takes inspiration from Jacques Derrida’s understanding of the “parergon” frame, which is “neither work (ergon) nor outside the work, neither inside or outside, neither above nor below…” (Derrida 1987). Derrida describes a dual function of “framing” depending on perspective: when we look at a painting, we see the frame as part of the wall; when we look at the wall, we see the frame as part of the painting. Though it often goes unnoticed, the frame is a tool that defines both space and the conceptual limits of an artwork.3 For immersive exhibitions, new technologies are a core element of the design that can be integral to the thematic or critical contribution of the work. At the same time, these technologies often melt into the background, allowing visitors to become engrossed in the “virtual” experience. Considering immersive exhibitions in terms of “framing” allows for multiple perspectives to emerge depending on where focus is directed—from examinations of the technologies that facilitate viewers’ immersion to deep attention to the visual aesthetics, narrative, or emotional impact at the heart of immersive experiences.

The contributions in this Special Issue act as powerful launching points, sparking a deep and critical examination of immersive exhibitions in the 21st century. Collectively, the authors not only illuminate current practices but also challenge us to rethink the boundaries and possibilities of immersive art experiences in our contemporary world. Some articles offer an expanded understanding of immersion in contemporary art, from Aleisha Barton’s examination of psychedelic, kinetic lithographs to Jenny Lin’s discussion of language and cultural immersion in diasporic Chinese video art. Others draw critical attention to the artists and institutions who are harnessing immersive exhibitions in powerful and successful ways: as a tool for facilitating an experience of surveillance or entrapment (in Cristina Albu’s analysis of Nick Cave’s Hy-Dyve), as a method of implicating participants in shared ecosystems (in Emily Lawhead’s examination of teamLab: Continuity), as a vehicle for non-linear storytelling (in Rui Zhang and Fanke Peng’s article on Aboriginal art in Connection: Songlines from Australia’s First Peoples), and as a way to expose our relationship to technology itself (in Mathilde Roman’s contribution on the artistic hijacking of LED walls). Francesca Albrezzi’s reflection on virtual exhibition building and Ben Evans James’s consideration of immersive documentary film take a curatorial angle, examining the design and curation of immersive space in our new, post-COVID world. And contributions by Dawna Schuld and Kate Mondloch take on the dematerializing effects of experiential art today and the corporate interests of the attention-experience economy. By exploring both the challenges and opportunities these exhibitions offer, the authors provide fresh perspectives and innovative approaches for understanding and evaluating the impact and significance of immersive art experiences in our current era.

5. Looking Ahead

This Special Issue both builds upon existing scholarship and catalyzes new directions in the study of immersive exhibitions, contributing to a rapidly evolving field of research. While it offers valuable insights, further scholarship is necessary to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the current landscape of immersive art experiences—both in terms of contemporary art and the growing attention-experience economy. The articles in this collection demonstrate how deep analysis of compelling and impactful immersive exhibitions can reveal valuable insights into their design, reception, and cultural relevance. For example: those that are just as powerful (if not more) in person than on social media; those that balance critical engagement and accessibility to a general audience unfamiliar with art and art history; those that use technological media in a way that creatively integrates today’s most pressing themes; and those that leave a lasting and thoughtful impact. As Jenny Lin writes, a quality experience with immersive art is “marked by an artwork’s ability to absorb and the lasting impact of that absorption” (Lin 2023). On the other hand, immersive exhibitions must be approached cautiously. Many use spectacular emerging technologies as a smoke screen for experiences that are visually dazzling but have no qualitative substance. Others take advantage of the attention-experience economy to make art even more exclusive, taking on steep admission prices and restricted VIP access that further alienates audiences who might be hungry for new experiences with art. Scholars must continue to balance these angles as immersive exhibitions develop and unfold in the years to come.

Though the pace of the world seems to constantly accelerate, we are still grappling with the technological developments of the last decade and reconciling with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The massive popularity of blockbuster immersive exhibitions is undoubtedly entangled with this current moment. As Brooke Belisle argues, the development of immersive experiences is part of larger, more complicated relationships with technology, aesthetics, politics, and history. Immersive experiences throughout time result from “a temporary but powerful alignment between the technical conventions of a particular medium, the aesthetic form of a particular representation, the cultural logic of a particular historical moment, and the perceptual framework of a particular participant’s embodied experience” (Belisle 2016). In other words, the conditions that bring about immersive experiences are not just tied to technological progress. In fact, they are inextricably linked to factors that define our modes of embodiment. This element deserves even closer examination moving forward. As Dawna Schuld writes in her article for this Special Issue: “What is missing, even repressed, is a critical awareness of the phenomenology of [immersive] experience, including how one’s perceptual faculties are engaged to effect meaning and, therefore, how one’s individual analog reality might differ from that of another” (Schuld 2023). Almost counterintuitively, further research is needed on our relationships with the physical world to better understand our experiences in virtual ones. The ways in which immersive exhibitions “frame the virtual”, bridging the digital and physical realms, exemplify this cultural tension and represent a rich area for continued scholarly exploration.