Khanh Be “Mesmerize”: An Immersive Experience Reflection

As one explores Mesmerize: Living Dreams, one enters a middle realm where Dreams and Reality collide, the artifacts one-by-one take turns to captivate their attention. Corner after corner, the harmonized chaos is the mixture of vivid lighting hues accompanying the space filled with the out-of-this-world physical structure blends in with enchanting projected visuals, motivating those who dare to investigate this unusual yet charming world. The most captivating has to be the color and larger-than-life physical artifacts, these range from a wall of flowing red yarn to a gigantic glowing jelly-fish-like mushroom, a tufted corner, and a giant fabric fairy creature. With the core theme being “Dreams” the experience has the advantage of limitless creativity and having numerous different aesthetics established throughout without being disjointed.

Although immersive, the dream world has its limitations, the lack of interactive artifacts. Despite the one artifact that used body-capturing to create a digital double to embody one’s soul, so the person’s input directly changed the artifact, the majority of the experience was interacted passively, by observing, touching, hearing, and reading existing artifacts but not making changes to them, in other words, one’s action doesn’t have agency to change the experience.

From the Mesmerize: Living Dreams, Immersive Experience, I was reminded that while we have been bombarded by technology telling us that digital contactless is the future, our thirst for that in-person tactile experience remains deep-rooted, like how many would go to theme parks despite the abundance of immersive tech or immersive video games. So I believe that while having immersive technology is vital, the physical environment where we are put in is immensely crucial for a lasting impact and a memorable experience.

Brainstorm: Simulation, Interact, Feel