The award-winning interactive VR trilogy marries scientific documentary video art
The Canadian premiere of the VR trilogy SPHERES takes place in a cathedral. At least it seems so when I enter the dedicated room at Montreal’s Phi Centre. The award-winning trio of documentaries about the sound of deep space, written and directed by Eliza McNitt and executive produced by Darren Aronofsky, is presented in a truly spectacular way: two rows of suspended glowing hoops meet at the far end of the high-ceilinged room and continue in the reflection of a dark disk which serves as altar. Astonished by this monumental view, I stop a conversation with my companion mid-sentence and step quietly inside a room draped in heavy, black fabric. After my eyes adjust to the darkness, I notice that there is a VR headset descending from the middle of each hoop. A friendly assistant dressed in all black approaches and leads me to one of the available stations, explaining what I am about to encounter.
The three parts of SPHERES, each just under 15 minutes, can be watched in any order as a triptych or separately. The spectacular visual style is artful yet clear enough for the films to be used as an educational tool. The scientific, documentary-style narrative is made poetic by mystic voices and a transcendental soundtrack. The experience is enhanced by interactive elements. The viewer is able to hear the “songs” of planets and stars by pointing at them when prompted using the controllers in their hands. The pointing doesn’t change any of the cosmic events, but I still feel a little bit god-like seeing the trace of my actions on the fabric of the universe.
Chapter I: Chorus of the Cosmos, narrated by Millie Bobby Brown, is the most interactive of the three. Using the canvas of the deep space, I draw auroras and I listen to the electromagnetic waves pulsing between my hands. The central event of Chorus of the Cosmos, the parade of planets in our solar system, is brought into motion by controllers. I am prompted to tap planets to activate and listen to their magnetospheres and then to push them as if starting a giant cosmic watch. As the planets fly around me, I can stick my head in any of them to hear the inner hums of the celestial bodies. The experience of “dancing” with the planets is truly mesmerizing but can have some tracking issues. In my inspired chase I was constantly hitting the blue grid of the VR border, meanwhile my tall companion had to bend over in order to put his head inside the planets.
Chapter II: Songs of Spacetime, narrated by Jessica Chastain, explains the concept of the black holes and gives a viewer a chance to look inside one of them. The experience is nearly psychedelic. Scientific facts turn esoteric with remarks like “The atoms of our bodies were forged in the heart of stars; we too are made of stardust.” Hearing something like this while being inside the star, and literarily a part of its matter, has a very dramatic effect. Not only does the viewer become a star, but also a black hole, swallowing other stars and “banging on the surface of time” with other black holes. There is even a scene where I was able to visualize gravitational waves using the sound of my own voice.
Chapter III: Pale Blue Dot (narrated by Patti Smith) is about, you guessed it, the Earth. The viewer travels through time from the Big Bang to the birth of the first stars and formation of galaxies. By pointing two golden “needles” coming out of my hands at glowing stars, I hear their siren songs as they drift by. This part has a slower pace and requires more observance than playfulness from the viewer. I felt a little dizzy as the rings of Saturn were spinning underneath my feet. But this experience feels like just a pleasant walk in comparison to the wild ride of Chorus of the Cosmos. And since Pale Blue Dot is less dynamic visually compared to Chapters I and II, I found I could can pay more attention to the haunting soundtrack, which is magnificent throughout the trilogy.
In SPHERES, the combination of electronic ambient chords with the imagined sounds of physical interactions of objects in space is seemingly completely fictional. The meteors swooshing by and crashing into each other couldn’t be heard, because there is no atmosphere in space to carry sound. Or, at least there is no “sound” that we humans can hear. SPHERES invites the viewer to imagine new ways to perceive what we can’t yet grasp.
The interactivity in SPHERES also decreases from part one to three, so watching the trilogy in reverse (as I did) might be perfect for somebody who is new to VR and is looking for a gradual rise of participation. Viewing the parts in reverse order enabled me to start as a human, become a star and a black hole, and then, essentially, God. It is refreshing to take part in this VR adventure, not as a mere human, but as a celestial body or some kind of cosmic energy.
SPHERES invites the viewer to the journey through millions of light years, encouraging the thirst for knowledge and creativity much like space itself, which has long been a source of questions and inspiration for humanity ever since we first acknowledged the skies above us.
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SPHERES runs at Rockefeller Center in New York City from January 18 through March 3, 2019. Tickets are $50.
[This review was published on noproscenium.com on 1.04.19]
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