DOK Neuland at DOK Leipzig
Demand the Impossible! In his essay The Ultimate Display from 1965, Ivan Sutherland formulated the almost prophetic dream of a computer display of reality that creates a perfect illusion of materiality. Films like The Matrix interpreted this as a nightmare, generating a fundamental scepticism of mediated spaces. At the same time, in 2015, hopes were raised that VR was an “empathy machine” that would make us all better human beings. Immersing yourself in other worlds via a headset, however, does not necessarily produce empathy. Today artists are exploring new aspects of immersion and leaving more space for a more complex experience of absorption.
The festival motto Demand the Impossible! serves as the guiding principle of our exhibition of interactive and VR works, too. We are transported to worlds that expand, defamiliarise, distort or temporally bend our present environment. This is where places that exist only in our imagination or in individual perceptions can be made accessible. This year, DOK Neuland focuses on works that turn their users into explorers: not like Neo in the matrix, but like Alice in wonderland.
Exhibited Works. DOK Neuland invites from 30 October to 3 November to discover and experience 12 interactive and VR works. Read more about the DOK Neuland projects:
https://www.dok-leipzig.de/en/festival/dokneuland/projekte-2018
