Call to Action 4: Tell (deeper) stories
SXSW 2019 Special
Although ‘storyteller’ has been swept into the lexicon of hip-creative-speak and corporate jargon, it is still something central to human existence. Storytelling fosters social cooperation, teaches us norms, and helps us make sense of the world. The ability to tell stories is a part of what makes us human.
However, the way we are telling and experiencing stories is changing. Shared stories are becoming more and more important. And a new nonlinear, participatory, and above all, immersive, type of narrative is emerging.
If you only read this:
‘Immersive’ was ubiquitous at SXSW this year, and for good reason. As an antidote to our accelerated society, we are craving settings that encourage us to pay full attention and go deeper into the moment. Immersive experiences are all-encompassing, tap into all senses, and are told through multiple media at once, so they can be incredibly persuasive. For brands, immersive can be used to intimately connect with an audience, getting them to invest and play a part so that the action continues when the show is over. It’s also a great way to create the ultimate escape — whether it’s into a fantasy world or one we’re familiar with and long for again.
Immersive Programming
Immersive journalism, immersive marketing, immersive experiments in museums — you get the point. Just as we assumed ‘immersive’ had come and gone along with the initial waves of experiential, the term has made a come-back, only with more vivid colours.
SXSW Interactive was not short of brands taking over city spaces for immersive activations. Major streaming networks got in on the action to draw visitors into their programming. Amazon Prime brought the Apocalypse to Austin with the Good Omens Garden of Earthly Delights, promoting the upcoming show ‘Good Omens’— with an immersive set-up inviting visitors in for an apocalyptically great time, and a full-on distraction from an impending end of the world. The experience included angels playing harps and string, beauty cabanas for hairstyling and massages, and even a dog pen with puppies up for adoption from the Austin Animal Center (the relevance of which to be debated!).
Netflix similarly immersed visitors in an underground speakeasy, to promote the next film by Texan director John Lee Hancock, ‘The Highwaymen’.
Transport yourself to a 1934 speakeasy, filled with immersive programming and interactive experiences you won’t want to miss!” (-Netflix)
Arguably higher on the scale of meaningfulness when it comes to branded activations, was the novel partnership between HBO and American Red Cross. Fans were invited to “show their bravery and valour by bleeding #ForTheThrone.” Open for 5 days, HBO recreated the world of Westeros in Austin, and crowds gathered to donate blood and take part in the fight for life. An immersive and meticulously crafted experience, to promote the final season of Game of Thrones, and simultaneously connecting people through supporting a greater cause.
Technology aiding Immersive
Novel developments in AR and VR are using the power of technology to create gadgets and spaces where we as participants become fully involved and have agency in stories that unfold around us. With our virtual worlds getting fully advanced, it can be difficult to separate digital from reality. If it looks and feels this real, does it in fact become reality?
At an individual level, the Oculus wireless headset is a portable VR adventure you can take with you almost anywhere. Others are taking immersive to another level, and putting new offerings on the menu of how we can entertain ourselves. Dreamscape and The Void are IMAX to the max, giving people opportunities to step into a story and watch it unfold around them. Intel’s HUGE geodesic dome is redefining moviemaking. Their technology creates voxels (3D pixels), which ‘render the virtual environment in spectacular, multi-perspective 3D.’
Immersive + Nostalgia
Nostalgia was combined with immersive to evoke the past in order to connect us with the future. Winner of the ‘Arrow’ for ‘Best Immersive Experience’ was The New Japan Islands by media artist Yoichi Ochiai, produced in collaboration with Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry department. A celebration of Japanese culture, the experience centres around Eastern views on nature and harmony, but merges them with technology to create ‘the next landscape of the industrial society.’
Trend analyst Rohit Bhargava placed ‘Retro-trust’ in one of his ‘non-obvious’ future trends, arguing that because we’re so skeptical of everything that’s going on now, we want to look back to things that we used to know. Whatever the validity of that statement, nostalgia was the key ingredient in another ‘Arrow’ award, for ‘Best Exhibition Experience’. The Time Machine by NHK Enterprises and Rhizomatiks is a virtual reality experience that uses new technology and old media to take users back to 1964, the last time the Olympics were held in Tokyo.
Also Viceland went down the nostalgic route this year, to provide immersion in the form of a retro escape (something had to compete with the infamous baby goats at last year’s activation). They hosted a four-day rollerskating party with 80s music and cotton candy in a downtown Austin parking lot.
Escape the present day, and get nostalgic! (-Viceland)
Whether it’s reconnecting to the past or seeing into the future, all points towards the fact that we are increasingly drawn to side-stepping into something ‘else’ — having an experience in parallel to what and where we are, in the hopes that it offers something memorable, something more.
