Are Immersive Exhibitions Ruining Art?

Vincent van Gogh. Pablo Picasso. Claude Monet. Gustav Klimt. Frida Kahlo. These names, for most people, represent titans of the fine art world, artists who in their lifetimes produced art so significant that its echoes have been felt across generations. Their works and lives have been romanticized, parodied, chewed up and spit out again in the form of merchandise and media. The longevity of their names is a testament to how their works – many of which were created in dark times, without realistic expectation of recognition or fame – have touched the hearts, minds, and imaginations of countless people throughout generations. Yet, these artists now have something new in common. Their works are all the subject of a new form of entertainment sweeping across the Western art world: immersive art exhibitions.

Immersive art exhibitions draw in audiences by using modern technology – mainly projections and soundscapes, though sometimes more ambitious elements like virtual or augmented reality – to add new dimensions to familiar artworks. In most cases the audience stands or sits on the floor in a large, empty room as a work or series of works from an artist is projected on the walls, floor, and ceiling around them, literally integrating them into the artwork. Stars flicker in the sky, brush strokes of water flow gracefully, the arms of a previously static mill turn slowly in an imagined wind. It’s like stepping into the world an artist imagined – and one they themselves never got to see.

Over the past few years, the popularity of these immersive art experiences has skyrocketed. Some of the more popular include “Immersive Klimt Revolution,” “Beyond Monet,” “Immersive Frida Kahlo,” and “Imagine Picasso,” plus five separate van Gogh immersive experiences, each licensed by a different private company ¹. The popularity of these exhibits is evident, and they are lauded for introducing a new generation to fine art. Supporters of the new experiences hope that visitors will be drawn in by the spectacle and promise of snappy social media photos, and will become engaged with the artists, seeking out more information once the event ends.

Yet, like any new technology, these exhibits have many vocal critics. They are criticized for cheapening the work of the artists by de-contextualizing their pieces and stripping them of their educational value ². The loudest criticisms come from people who believe that the immersive elements place the focus on the visitors rather than the artists. This superficial engagement with the art – only attending an exhibit to get something out of it, presumably social media clout – is bemoaned as an expression of a vain and self-centred generation.

But immersive art is not new, and neither is the pervasive feeling that society is becoming increasingly self-obsessed. Compared to other immersive experiences that offer more intense engagement for all five senses, sitting in a room with a projector seems fairly mundane. So, what is it that draws people into these new immersive art exhibits? To answer this, we have to turn to the past, to the rise of this cultural vanity, and to the work of one of America’s most influential cultural critics.

The Culture of Narcissism

In 1979, cultural historian Christopher Lasch published The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations. The book made a splash in the United States, winning the 1980 National Book Award for the “Current Interest – Paperback” category ³ and continues to be widely read and discussed to this day. The book is fairly dense, and occasionally diverges into tangents on social issues that have not held up in their relevance, but the overall argument on the shifting values of postwar America, namely towards a growing obsession with the self, remains relevant today.

Lasch’s definition of narcissism varies slightly from the popular understanding of the term as an unhealthy vanity. He denies that its core quality is selfishness, arguing that the obsession with the self is in fact, paradoxically, a product of losing a sense of selfhood (xxxiii) ⁴. Americans were increasingly turning inward to try and rediscover the connection to themselves and to their communities that was lost among the carnage of the first half of the 20^th century. What is notable about narcissism for Lasch is what people do to express this new vanity. Throughout the book, he highlights two main products of narcissism that impact how people interact with culture and one another: a rising need to use others as a mirror, and a devaluation of both past and future. Both of these products can be seen reflected in the new mania for immersive art exhibitions.

Me, Myself, and I

Lasch’s first point will be unsurprising to those familiar with the popular understanding of narcissism. It aligns with the original Greek myth of Narcissus, in which a handsome young man drowns or wastes away (depending on the version of the myth) staring at his own reflection in a pond ⁵. It’s widely accepted that narcissists and mirrors go naturally together. But how can people use one another as mirrors?

Lasch writes that, more than selfishness, narcissism is a weakness of character, through which people are increasingly unable to find meaning within themselves, and are forced seek it from exterior sources (xxxii). Self-affirmation requires a sense of selfhood at one’s core, not one “subject to environmental determination” (xxxiii). Essentially, people are no longer able to find meaning in life through their relationship with themselves. They require external validation. In this way, Lasch’s narcissist is trying to find meaning in life not from within, but from without, not gazing at themselves in a mirror but gazing at themselves through validation from others.

One notable element changing the environment in America was the prevalence of new recording technology in the 1970s. Lasch argues that cameras and video recorders were leading everyone to behave as if they are being watched at all times (61). This has only become more accurate as cell phones with high quality cameras have become pervasive over the past few decades. This acute awareness of being observed leads people to feel as if they need to perform. Consider, for example, how desperately people look to media or celebrities to determine the next hot style, or change their language around trendy slang. More recently, people have started switching up their wardrobes to fit new manufactured aesthetics such as the recent popularity of cottagecore, dark and light academia, or the e-girls and boys popularized by TikTok. These internet “personalities” allow people to place themselves into defined boxes, making them easily understandable to others and thus understandable to themselves. Yet as trends come and go, the narcissist needs to search for new reflections, to try and discover a fresh connection to their “self.”

If the narcissist is constantly searching for a way to see themselves in the things around them, few things could satisfy their hunger more than an immersive art exhibition. They are in a room with strangers yet fundamentally isolated, particularly with the social distancing measures due to the popularization of these exhibits over the COVID-19 pandemic. Surrounded by massive projections on every surface, the narcissist literally becomes part of the artwork. An exhibition cannot be immersive without intimately involving the subject viewing the work, meaning that it could not function without the narcissist being present. Indeed, if the narcissist was not so skilled at seeing pieces of themselves reflected in those around them, the immersion of the exhibit would perhaps not be as appealing or successful.

This integration into the actual artwork, combined with the social media opportunities encouraged throughout the exhibit, allows for constant observation by those both physically present and not. This makes immersive art exhibitions ideal to satisfy – albeit temporarily – the needs of Lasch’s narcissist.

Critics argue that this self-absorption leads to the immense popularity and profitability of these exhibits, which pressures traditional exhibition spaces to attempt to accommodate the trend. The rise of digital technology has lead museums and art galleries to rely to increasing degrees on interactivity and “nonconfrontational environments” that draw in visitors with promises of comfortable and engaging exhibits ⁶. By prioritizing sensory engagement and staying well within visitor comfort zones, the visitor always leaves the exhibit having gotten exactly what they want from it. They find no challenge to their preconceived notion of what the art is, or what it may mean. In this way, immersive art exhibitions not only accommodate narcissism within their own walls, but encourage the accommodation of narcissism in traditional art institutions as well.

Living in the Moment

Lasch’s second manifestation of narcissism is a disconnection from both historical past and the future. He argues that an inward focus leads to a desire for quick, temporary satisfactions, or a desire to live perpetually in the moment to the fullest extent possible (12). But where does this perspective come from, and what does it mean?

Lasch writes that postwar America found itself in a crisis of capitalism, or a sudden crisis of confidence in the functioning of capitalist society (1). The Cold War and the war in Vietnam lead to an impending sense of doom hanging over the nation, leading to a general loss of hope for the future (14). Pop culture and the collective imagination of the nation became preoccupied with a “sense of ending,” or a growing confidence that terrible things were guaranteed to come in the future (11). This shared feeling of impending doom lead to a shift in how American society collectively thought about time. If society has no future, what else is there to do but live for the moment? This newfound search for temporary and present satisfaction in turn leads to a neglect for the future generations, and a disconnection from the past.

Immersive art exhibitions, by nature, can only exist in the present. They take a static piece of art and turn it into performance art, something that must be experienced uniquely by the audience sitting in the room at its exact moment of existence. One it ends, that particular instance of it is over forever. The same person may return to watch the same show, but their experience of it, what they take note of and how they feel about it, will be different.

A significant criticism of these experiences is that these projections are decontextualized from the history of the artists and their works. The subjects of the paintings, the techniques used, and even the materials were all products of each artist’s contemporary circumstances. Modernizing their art into moving spectacles detaches it from its meaning outside of existing as a popular cultural object. Is the exhibition successful because people appreciate van Gogh’s art, or simply because people recognize it? Completely detached from any way the artist may have wished for their art to be presented, the immersive experience exists only for the gratification of those modern viewers who are in the room at its moment of presentation.

More than detachment from the past, immersive art exhibitions are artworks that have no preservation for the future. The artists whose works form the content of these experiences are so significant because of how their artworks have been admired for generations. A projection show is incapable of remaining static for future generations in the same way. Mostly held in “transitional commercial spaces” like warehouses ⁷, these exhibitions exist for present gratification, and then pack up and move on. In some ways this adds to the allure of the exhibition – see it now, or never again! With a new sense of pervading doom pushed on by pandemics, climate change, and fraught global politics, there is an understandable detachment from the future today that echoes that of postwar America. It certainly suits the narcissist’s desire to live in the moment.

Critics argue that these sensational and interactive exhibitions imply that traditional art is somehow deficient in its smaller, less dynamic form ⁸. Bombarding viewers with brushstrokes as tall as houses, they are deprived of the immersion that comes from staring at a static painting and engaging with imagination. Adding a more sensational form of participation prevents viewers from engaging in a subtler, perhaps more rewarding form of immersion forged between individual viewers and static art.

Is it Good Art… Or Good for Us?

So, if immersive art exhibitions are emblematic of what Lasch sees as problematic about narcissism in society, does that mean they are inherently bad?

Immersive art exhibitions certainly have many critics. They believe that the experiences undermine traditional art by being too sensational, de-contextualizing it from its past and future, and discouraging viewers from seeking the educational value of art. Yet by gatekeeping engagement with fine art, enjoyment is limited to the privileged few who live in or are able to travel to the expensive museums where the physical works are housed. Pop art has always existed as a means of circumventing institutions to reach the audience directly ⁹, and immersive art exhibitions – though themselves not cheap – offer fine art to a much wider and more diverse audience.

The second critique, that immersion cheapens artwork, similarly falls flat. Already, all good art requires some level of participation from the audience ¹⁰. Consider a good book, which draws upon the reader’s imagination to fill in the blanks left by the author. This engagement, albeit much subtler than the immersion provided by more sensational technology, forges a deep connection between creator and viewer.

There are merits to both sides of the immersive art argument. Yet, like most social issues, neither side is completely right. Immersion, like anything, should be consumed in moderation. A larger-than-life technological experience that leaves the viewer with some appealing Instagram photos certainly sounds like a fun afternoon. But it should by no means completely replace traditional and more educational art exhibitions. Art and technology will continue to grow together, and this innovation is important and should not be stifled. But being the centre of attention should not become a prerequisite for enjoying art. If it is, art loses the ability to challenge the viewer. And if all art is comfortable, how will we ever grow?

What do you think? Leave a comment.