To the Moon (2019) is a visual and aural symphony. To compose it, Laurie Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang were inspired by the legend of the ancient Chinese painter who for years had painted such a gigantic and detailed landscape that in the end, he managed to walk into it. Here, wearing the visor means becoming an astronaut exploring the moon - a moon reconstructed line by line, drawing on tropes from Greek mythology and space sci-fi movies, investigating literary, scientific and political imagery.

On the dark side of the Moon, black dust and mathematical symbol hinder but also guide the visitor; incomprehensible genetic codes create bird-like forms, dinosaurs and lost objects. It is a place to plunge into darkness and surrender to the complexity of the universe, feeling enraptured and helpless.

It only takes the first 30 seconds of the trailer to realise that Goliath (2021) is not just an immersive journey, but an adventure for the mind. Some people might find it a bit challenging, as the trigger warning at the start of the experience warns. May Abdalla and Barry Gene Murphy show us how fragile reality can be by simulating the vicissitudes of a man living with schizophrenia. 

The images, which vary in alternating flashes, remind us that sometimes even the most basic points of reference can disappear at any moment. Accompanied by the voice of Tilda Swinton, Goliath goes through various stages of his life, from the loss of his parents, to the psychiatric institution, to the newfound social relations made possible by the protected environment of multiplayer video games.

Winner of the “Best Story” award at the Venice VR 2021, in End Of Night (2021), David Adler invites the viewer to sit on a boat with Josef as he rows away from occupied Denmark to the neutral territories of Sweden at the dawn of World War II. The trauma of guilt, of those who choose to flee the war, sometimes forced to leave their loved ones behind, is recounted in a whirlwind of memories and images that mingle with the water of the immense ocean to be crossed. 

Adler, who has lived such an experience himself, uses VR as an intimate meeting place, bringing the audience face to face with the emotions of a refugee, asking for understanding but above all empathy. A past story that teaches us lessons about the present.

Throughout history, we humans have learned to manipulate matter through technology, but our spirituality “remains the same as it was thousands of years ago with Gautama Buddha”. In Samsara (2021), Hsin-Chien Huang uses VR technology and 3D animation to invite us to manipulate our spirituality through a process of Embodied Cognition - the act of learning through bodily sensations - in an extreme scenario. 

The human species destroyed planet Earth, evolved artificially and has been travelling through space since time immemorial until as a stranger it finds Earth again and remembers lost human emotions. Here, Huang invites us to enter the bodies of humans and animals, to be victims and executioners, to rediscover joy and fear, and if the karmic cycle is not done, to start again.

Once Pandora’s box is uncovered, all the evils of the world are released and start to afflict humans, but at the bottom remains hope, which doesn’t make it out in time. Kiira Benzing and the many other actors in Finding Pandora X – one of the first performative and participatory works in the history of VR – invite viewers to meet on their platform at a specific time, and then accompany them on an adventure to help the only remaining Olympian gods, Zeus and Hera, in their search for the box.

The work, conceived before the pandemic, has become a meeting place for many people during the lockdown, and pursuing the various quests, guided by the actors, has acquired a metaphorical value for the participants - that of coming together in search of hope.

Sometimes, all it takes is a “simple” documentary to experience the immersive capabilities of VR... and Space Explorers: The ISS Experience, “the largest production ever filmed in space” with its 200 hours of real footage shot on board the International Space Station, reminds us of this. For this ambitious production, Félix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphaël had the good fortune to be among the very few astronauts living on the ISS, throughout their six-month mission, to tell the story of the life of a crew, from all the range of emotions they feel when they reach their destination, to the challenges and satisfactions of their daily work.

For this unprecedented collaboration with NASA, Felix & Paul Studios and TIME Studios have designed a special type of VR camera, engineered to operate in zero gravity.

Because of the pandemic, during the 2020 and 2021 editions of the Venice Film Biennale and the Red Sea Film Festival, Venice VR and Red Sea Immersive chose to do something more than the usual exhibition of VR works. The medium, thanks to the VR Chat platform, became a meeting place for visitors, who during the festivals could choose avatars designed by the artists and attend an extensive programme of events.

The scenarios were selected from a series of VR Chat Worlds, which can still be visited on VR Chat. In this gallery, you can see some of them, such as Cycle of Life, Lost It, The Hallwyl Museum, Uncanny Alley, Museum of VR Painting, Aquarius, and Moscow Trip 1952, while others are available in the Venice VR Expanded section at www.labiennale.org.