Welcome to Immersed in the Future
Diving into the Immersive Future
ISSUE 1
By Marco E. Bruscoli, Scholar-in-Residence, WolfBrown
Every Sunday morning I’m always impressed to see full-page advertisements in the New York Times for immersive exhibitions. From Van Gogh to Klimt to the Immersive King Tut, during 2022 it was difficult to follow any media without encountering two buzzwords: “IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE.”
I keep wondering – how did these commercial production companies earn the attention of the general public in such a short period of time, gaining ubiquity in almost every communication channel?
The sheer number of new and upcoming immersive exhibitions is astonishing, and the millions of dollars being invested in immersive technologies, formats and spaces is telling a clear story – that this is not a passing bubble but an endemic form of entertainment that activates a wide cross-section of the marketplace.
Visionary nonprofit companies such as Punchdrunk and well-financed commercial experience producers such as IMG, CluedUpp, Fever, and Secret Cinema have secured partnerships with large companies such as Niantic and Disney and earned the luxury of focusing their efforts exclusively on the evolution of storytelling in the creation of transformative, interactive experiences – a burgeoning part of the multi-billion dollar market for “location-based entertainment”…
