What if the Future of Learning Will Be Scent-Based?
Exploring Industry’s Insights to Make the Future of Immersion in Museums.
[In this new series of article, I’ll share precious insights from key actors of the immersion + museum field to understand the underlying foundations of it all.]
The most memorable museum or art experiences that I had the chance to live were those playing with our senses and emotions to tell a story. From Obedience by Saskia Boddeke & Peter Greenaway at the Jewish Museum Berlin in 2015, The Enemy by Karim Ben Khelifa, Beyond the Road by Colin Nightingale, Stephen Dobbie & James Lavelle (UNKLE) at the Saatchi Gallery in 2019 and, most recently, Overmorrow at Wild Renate Club in Berlin last month, one of the most famous and mindblowing is “We Live in an Ocean of Air” by Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF).
Tell complex stories with senses.
This exhibition is all about emphasizing the symbiotic relationship between humans and Nature through our breathing. What makes this experience especially strong and transformative is the multisensory side of things. The story is told by the senses. It is through the breath and heart sensors, the binaural sound, scent dispersal systems and wind machines that the key message of this experience is being shared.
“You can hack the senses and simulate worlds beyond the limits of human perception”. Barnaby Churchill Steel, Co-founder of Marshmallow Laser Feast
Despite the tech side of things unleashing the full potential of our senses as learning tools, the rhythm, length and quality of journey contribute to the learning. The first step makes you conscious of your virtual body. You start to acknowledge the flow of your breathing going out of your mouth and spreading all around you, as well as the oxygen going through your veins when you look at your hand. The second step is set in the middle of a poetic forest mixing images from reality and fictional ones. There, you start to understand that you, as a living body, are surrounded by other living entities like trees. Slowly, you see the impact of your breathing on the trees and discover the symbiosis.
What works well here is the simplicity, yet intimately complex, learning process that you experience with your own body, step by step, at your own pace. It is not about learning more science and facts, but just using our body to materialise the universal language and relation between humans and Nature.
(read here a very good history and summary of the future of scent-based VR)
Living the phygital harmony
With the project “We Live in an Ocean of Air”, we have a good example of multi-sensory experiences using a space-based immersion and physical triggers to guide the visitors into a virtual world available through virtual reality headsets.
The journey starts with the understanding of the context in which the visitor will be immersed — an introduction of the new sense of your body and the dynamics within. The trip continues with the consideration of a new environment and an ecosystem that no longer puts the human being at the centre but at the heart. It finishes with the learning of the impact of humans, and more especially our breathing, on nature. The transformational journey is simple and complete.
Betting on the repetition of smart collaborations
But this example interests me even more for its ticket-revenue business model. Based on a smart mapping of the potential host partners, the art collective invests on the long-term touring potential of the product.
During the panel discussion “Models for financing and operating VR for Culture” hosted at Museum Connections in Paris in January 2020, Mike Jones, Head of Production at Marshmallow Laser Feast, explained more about it (listen to the session here).
From a demand point of view, the MLF show at the Saatchi in London started with a 6-weeks run and got extended twice. In the end, the exhibition lasted 5 months, it was always sold out and 28 000 tickets have been sold and generated a revenue of over half a million pound. The ticket was sold at 25£ / 27€ for a 10 minutes experience in VR and 20 minutes in total.
The ticket model used here is a 1£/1€ per minute of VR experience. The exhibition created a new destination for 83% of the audience who came to see the VR experience, and not especially for the museum.
Marshmallow Laser Feast bet on the emerging and innovative experience provided and on the attraction potential of key cultural institutions to attract as many visitors as possible and sell enough tickets to support the initial production costs. The distribution strategy has been to go through the list of institutions able to sustain the expected ticket price from 10 big cities in the world. Mike Jones explained that the goal was to make this experience tour for 2/3 years to be able to clear the investment after 50/60% of the tour, so 1,5 year after the launch of the experience.
“Understanding the curation policy and business process of museums is the first stage to find potential partners.” Mike Jones, Marshmallow Laser Feast.
“Understanding the curation policy and business process of museums is the first stage to find potential partners,” emphasized Mike Jones at Museum Connections. Indeed, the number of immersion-based spaces, immersive or VR exhibitions or experiences is growing very quickly but finding the right partner is still so difficult. Ana Brzezińska from Kaleidoscope Fund (United States) explained at Museum Connections 2020 that despite that the demand from creators to work with museums and galleries is getting higher every day, the main pain point of the industry today is the distribution model. VR producers haven’t found yet a model enabling them to reach the number of viewers rewarding the quality of the work.
In reaction to this lack of hosting venues, new initiatives like Superblue are poping-up. Their model is based on the creation of multiple super-venue for a huge number of visitors. Their so-called experiential art centres (EACs) start in a 50,000 sq. ft industrial building in Miami in December 2020 and will keep on blooming in other US cities, as well as in Europe and Asia. They are commissioning immersive works and share ticket revenues with the artists.
A taste of tomorrow
The ambition of Superblue to open large-scale immersion spaces in every city matches with the extension of l’Atelier des Lumères in the South of France at Baux de Provence, or the international expansion of Teamlab in Utrecht or a club in Shanghai, and many more.
But when I read the introduction of Outernet, I start to envision something else, bigger, more global and going further the arts and culture sectors. Outernet is where arts and entertainment fully merge. Where brands and culture met in one space.
“Outernet is a global network of connected entertainment districts where communities can come together to enjoy culture in new breathtaking ways.”
