#1810: 気候変動と集合的主体性を探る実験的ビジュアル没入アート「The White Saboteur」

The Voices of VR Podcast. really interesting kind of experimental piece. It's about climate change, and it's also about you bearing witness to what's happening and watching a iceberg. And as you bear witness and watch it, your gaze is a part of the destruction of that iceberg, because as people travel down and actually look at icebergs, then all the impacts of climate change are taking effect. And so it's kind of like this philosophical, very abstract, theoretical type of collective agency exploration, but it's through the lens of this kind of visual art and these deeper kind of rules and systems and structures that you have to kind of come back in again and again to kind of

solve what's actually happening in this piece, kind of like a puzzle. So I see it very much as like an air-Earth error because there is a lot of like abstractions. It's very experimental. There's a lot of symbolic representations that are happening around ways of depicting aspects of global climate change, but also this kind of abstraction of collective agency. So more of a collective fire element where everybody's gaze is slowly dissolving the world around you. But the other one being the earth element in terms of like it's very immersive the visual art also had like a whole video installation where you're watching it more of a kind of a cinematic way and then they have a little bit of a epilogue at the end of each day we're kind of watching to see what eventually at the end of the cycle everything goes to a complete whiteout so everything is kind of slowly destroyed so it's also a durational piece where it kind of starts and stops over the course of an entire day so this water element of the time base kind of beginning middle and end it It would begin at the day with everything sort of regenerated and full, and as each person goes through, then they're slowly degrading the environment.

So by the end of the day, it sort of goes to this complete whiteout. So then they show the epilogue each day, and then it starts over each and every day. So, again, it's very abstract and experimental, and I found myself coming back trying to understand the logic of it and understand, like, what does this represent? and also just the way that they're addressing these issues of collective agency, which is a bit paradoxical because you can't always necessarily see the impact and traces of your own individual agency, but you can certainly see the global impact of certain actions that everyone's taking, which is sort of like a metaphor within itself around climate change in terms of we're all doing these actions and behaviors that are contributing to the destruction of the planet, but yet it's difficult for us to sort of point to any one thing that we're doing that is tipping the scales because it's all kind of aggregating up all together. So yeah, just kind of really a deep philosophical piece that made me think a lot around this nature of collective agency and ways that they're trying to explore that in a really innovative way within this piece. So we're covering all that and more on today's episode of the Voice of the VR Podcast. So this interview with Bartholomew and Hugo happened on Sunday, September 6th,

2026 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in. I am Hugo Arcier. I am a visual artist. And all my work is created using computer graphics. So it takes a different form, of course. It could be installation, video installation, of course XR. Also audiovisual performances. And about, especially XR, I had a different role depending on the project. if you want I can do like a little history of all the projects I was involved so the first one was the island of the dead so I think it was a project directed by Benjamin Nuel and it was produced by Orion Urar and this project was presented in Venice and I think it was

the first time there was Venice Immersive and I was artistic director on that project so more focus on the visual part of it after that I did a project about Monet the printer Monet and this one also has been shown in a lot of festivals around the world and won a lot of prizes and after that I did a project called Eden so I was co-author with Cyril Test that is known as a theatrical play director it was a very particular project because it was financed by in France what we call the St. National so it's more theatrical play places and we show that project in not a lot of festivals we show it in GIF in Geneva and it won the sensible prize there. And it was shown a lot in France in Seine Nationale.

So it's more places generally for theatrical, but they are open also to other forms of art. And it's a project that was done in 2017, and it's still shown today. There was an exhibition recently in an art venue in France that is called Palais de Tokyo. And for this project, we have sound parts created by a parfumer that is called Francis Curgeon. And after that, I did two other projects for this parfumer that was called L'Essence du Parfum. And then we are now with the White Saboteur, with Barthelémi. So I'm Barthélemy Antoine Louvre. I'm a visual artist too, and Iceberg Breeder. This is a name that I gave to one of my work, and then it became more like a name that I gave me

to talk about all my work about ice and cryosphere. And actually, this is my first piece in XR, but I've made a small film in 360 a few years ago. The name was No Meteor, Fiction Atmospheric. In English, it gave our meteors atmospheric fiction. And it was about an unbalanced climate that takes place in Mars on Earth. Would it be, I mean, the Earth in many, many years would be like Mars, or is it Mars right now? So for me, it's a real premiere. So this is why we are working with Hugo, because we know each other since many years. But in my work, I'm very interested in the aspect about climate change, systemic issues, questions about the disappearance of the ice and all the glaciers that we have on our planet and what would be the impact if it disappears. So, of course, the question about water,

about how we can live together in this world and what it will be for the future. and I usually do more installation form that are more physical and less virtual so that's another aspect for me even if I come from the video because I was a director for documentaries about environmental question for 10 years and that's it I think yeah perhaps for my teams I like to develop in my work is the disappearance. So it could be linked to, of course, ecological subjects, but also in a more philosophical level, the disappearance of reality, for example. Nice. Well, I always love to hear what kind of design disciplines people are coming in. And so I'm wondering if each of you could give a bit more context as to your background and journey into the type of visual art that you're making? Yeah. So I did a school that gave a diploma of a G-CAP director.

So the idea is to direct film using computer graphics. And my background comes from visual effects. For movies, this is where I learned all the tools, and some of them I still use today. But very quickly, I started to develop my own project. and also question this tool. There is a kind of meta level in my work. I'm trying to dissect what CG is, what virtual world is, what are the specificity of this media, and I try to give some key to the viewer about it to understand it better. And my background is more in French literature, So I studied for some years and didn't really study art school or visual art in a very official way because I began to be a director for documentaries about environmental issues and climate issues.

But I think that I changed a little bit to be more in an artistic field because I had the feeling that it was quite difficult to achieve documentaries at this time about environmental issues. And I have the feeling also that maybe we can be more sensitive to get this question to the public. But it's also during this moment when I was director of documentaries, I met a lot of scientists. And I think this is what I kept talking to scientists every day. and in the white sea water there's scientists that are involved actually in the project. In all my previous projects, most of the projects I've made before, there are scientists also. So they are not creators as I am, but we are talking a lot. In my theme, I said it already, but it's a very question about climate change and what will be the future for humanity. It's also a systemic impact.

and I'm really focused now about the place that we take as human and the action of the human. And for my part, for example, I don't take plane anymore and I use bicycle instead of plane. So it's also in a very personal perspective that I'm doing this kind of work. And to finish about XR, because I think it's important to tell why I was interested in XR, When we talked about this project with Ego, we were talking about how sensitive it could be. But there were also this question about, okay, so if we use a technology, I need to understand what's behind this technology and how I can be in some kind of criticism also about the technology we are using. It's not free to use the technology right now. and in all my previous work I'm questioning the technology also that I'm using and it was

interesting for me to get in this technology as a newbie but with this kind of perspective or point of view that might be interesting to okay I want to understand what's happening when you use this technology what's behind this technology is it okay to use it at the same time Yeah, so I've had a chance to see the White Saboteur actually three times here. It's a durational piece that's unfolding from like 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. And so I wanted to see it at different stages, and I went to the epilogue on the first night to kind of see the conclusion. But my audience listening may not have any context or know anything about the piece, and so maybe you could do your best to sort of describe what is the White Saboteur. Okay, so the White Saboteur is an artistic piece, and it is about the disappearance of a cryosphere, but also our impact on it. So it takes the form of a persistent world. So here in Venice, it lasts one day.

We generate the world at the beginning of the day, and it's also interactive, and the interaction goes through the gaze of a user. So each time a user is looking at a glacier and an iceberg, he destroys it. and the piece is also projection, so you are alone in the VR, but all the parts you are destroying appear in a projection but in a different form like a fossilized version of what you are destroying and actually the storytelling there is no real storytelling but there is a story somewhere in the piece is that when a visitor enters this world he will have an impact on this world a negative impact, a destructive impact through his gaze but when he leaves the world He leaves the world in a state that the next visitor will find. And so the world will take many shapes during the day.

Of course, at the beginning, you have a beautiful world that is totally balanced. And at the end of the day, you will have an unbalanced world with less ice, with more storm. And it's also that mechanism of what could happen on the earth if there is no more ice, actually. it's a very poetic and very contemplative point of view we are not in the postcard or we are not trying to get as true as possible because the world itself is made of icebergs that can float in the air and in the water so it's a very poetic point of view that we choose and you mentioned the cryosphere what is the cryosphere? the cryosphere is a world that expresses all icebergs, glaciers So it just kind of encompasses all of the icebergs, glaciers, and stuff like that. Okay. So there's a destruction of the cryosphere as the temperature goes up, then that starts to melt and go away. And so this is a piece that's very poetic, very abstract,

and I think it's a challenge that I've seen over the years of how do you address the issue of the climate change because it's basically like such a huge abstract, you know, your individual agency aggregating up into collective agency in a way that is often out of sight and out of mind. And I feel like this is the piece that's trying to close that gap between your agency of one individual's actions having an impact on the world that they may not, I mean, I think it's, I came back over multiple times and then I heard an idea of it, but it's still the type of piece where, as I see the piece, I may not fully appreciate what impact I've had on the world. And so it's sort of like a metaphor that even within the piece, you kind of have to pay attention to it or come back to it again and again or understand that's what's happening because it is very abstract. But I think that abstraction also actually reflects the reality of what we're in. So in a lot of ways, us talking about it right now is sort of describing the situation that we're all in.

So just curious to hear a little bit around the origins of this project and how you wanted to try to address this paradox of how to tell the story of something where our collective agency is having an impact, but it's difficult to discern what our individual actions may be doing. But trying to close that gap in a poetic, abstract, metaphoric way. I think that at the very beginning of the project, we wanted to put the visitor in an experience of solitude. in front of his own choice, actually, and the sublime that you have in those kind of landscapes. It's a landscape that reminds us polar landscapes. And the choice that you have to... I mean, not the choice that you have... Actually, you have a choice to go in this universe, this XR experiment, or not. You choose to go there, but by going there you know that you will destroy this universe.

And I think that this kind of question that you are alone with yourself in a very contemplative moment can give you the opportunity to think about your impact. But it was also important to understand that we didn't want to patronize the visitor here, so this is why it's very poetic and very open in a question. but also this is why we wanted to make the visitor a part of a bigger story you are not alone who destroy the world you are not the one who will destroy all the world you are one of the many visitors that will be part of this destruction of the world and it is actually exactly what happened when we talk about the last change tourism for example if you take the plane to see the last iceberg, you will be participating to the destruction or to the vanishing of the iceberg. This is where we are, actually. If you go by yourself one time alone, of course, the impact will be small.

But if there is a lot of people that goes there, the impact will be totally awful. I don't know if it's the good world, but... Devastating or destructive, yeah. Yeah. So this is what we wanted to push at the very beginning of the story, to have this thin line, this paradox. There is a lot of ambiguity in the project about that. It's not black or white, it's gray. And I don't really know if we, as humans, are conscious about those kind of balance, equilibrium. And that's why we wanted to push this. and on the other side we discuss about how sublime could be this world and to make the people feel something we had to create a world that was beautiful actually but it's still beautiful even when you destroy it and that's another paradox because you get in the world let's say that you are in the beginning of the world at the first moment in the day

it's a beautiful world made of icebergs that's floating around you You have a beautiful sky, you have a nice northern light, you have a nice meteor that we can all project with snow that falls, and it's kind of poetic. And at the end of the day, the climate collapses totally, and you will get more storm, you will get less iceberg, the sky will be more gray, but it's still beautiful, it's still sublime, actually. And we wanted also to give a very intimate moment to all the visitors and a very special moment. So that if you do the experiments one time and you do it again, you will not have the same landscape at all. And that means also that everybody will have its own experience of this world. And we as creators, we still discover new landscapes. landscapes we discover new lights we still discover a new combination of weather that rules

this uh this world i think you said a lot uh i don't know what to add about that yeah just maybe add in terms of you know very early beginnings like where did you begin in a project like this so i think the main idea the main concept was there from the beginning and we applied to the College Biennale, so it was an important part of the project because it was a workshop with mentors, so we developed the writing of it, and it's where the diptych part of the project, the fact that it's both VR and projection, and really two applications connected, so this is where the diptych appears. But I think really the main concept was there from the beginning. Yeah, it's a type of piece that's a little bit of like a puzzle to be unlocked. So when I saw it, I saw it once, and then sometimes I read a little bit about stuff,

but I also want to see, like, just be introduced to a world to see if I can, like, decode what's happening. And then I was like, okay, what's happening here? What's going on? And then there was a bit of an inquiry, and then I learned that it was a durational piece that's unfolding over the course of 24 hours. There was discussions about making it unfold over the entirety of like 10 or 11 days. But there is a beginning cycle at 10 a.m. and it ends at 8 p.m. And then I was invited to come back at 8 p.m. to see the epilogue. So I came back. I saw the epilogue. I was like, okay, now I know where it's going at the end. Now I kind of know, well, okay, so then I came back two more times to see, okay, well, if it's changing at different times of day, let me try to see it this time of the day. And then I came back for a third time and see it at this time of the day. So I have a little bit of better sense of the logic of the piece, but it did take me solving a bit of a puzzle and also talking to the creators and the producers and just get more insight as to the structure of the piece. So I'm curious how you imagine a piece like this. What's the best way for people to see it?

Is it kind of like what I did? Is that you have to be intrigued and solve the puzzle? Or, like, because people just see the first time and they're like, I don't get it, and then they walk away, then it's sort of a challenge of, like, well, how do you communicate this really complicated issue? So, yeah, I'm just wondering how you imagine, like, the onboarding, the experience, and the offboarding so that you could sort of streamline that. Or if it's meant to be a puzzle, kind of communicate that this is a bit of a puzzle piece that you need to think about or be motivated to try to figure out. I knew I was going to be talking to the creators, to you, the creators, which meant that, you know, I have to kind of know what this project is and understand it at least to a certain extent. So I was motivated to do that, but not everybody is that motivated to keep coming back. So I'm just curious to hear a little bit of reflections on a puzzle piece like this and the paradox of how you communicate what the piece even is. I think what was important for us on the onboarding is to tell to the audience that it's a living world and a persistent world because people can know it is

and also explain them what they will see is a unique experience. So if they come another day, another time, they will see something totally different. And we have, in fact, a lot of people that wanted to do it twice, for example. And, for example, if they come in the morning, they want to see it at the end of the day. yeah so i think the main idea we want to tell to the audience is that is a living world but more than that we wanted to keep also a part of mystery so what you see on the screen is not what you see in the xr experience and that was kind of a strange introduction because you are in space with materials and with fossilized iceberg that you don't understand it's really iceberg at this moment and when you enter in the headset and when you take the headset on your head you enter in a totally different world where you have a direct impact and actually the question could be

do you know if you go and see the iceberg that it's not what it should be if human wasn't there or not so you don't have really to know that people were there before you can notice it because you understand that you are destroying this world with your gaze so there is an onboarding because you have to explain to the people but i think that it could be also the puzzle that you were talking about because it's still working that's way too i mean you you you have the feeling that something wrong but that you are part of this something wrong in this in this world it's an uncomfortable situation actually for the visitor it's sublime but it's wrong at the same time or do i do something that i shouldn't do and we have some kind of funny situation there because some of the people are trying not to look at the iceberg so they move their head in somewhere that they don't destroy the iceberg but they can see them because all the

interaction is based on the gaze so that's funny or we try to get some tricks you know to not destroy not touch this world but still be part of the experiments so it gives you also when you see the people in this kind of questioning we know that we are in the good way to tell the story and and i think that we know that we don't have to say too much to understand what's in this world And after that, it's also your way to see the world, actually. If you are aware about the disappearance of the glaciers, you will get the meaning of the installation very quickly. If you're not aware, it may take a little bit more time to understand what the impact and why you are here but at the end you get the good conclusion or something that is similar that maybe it wasn a good idea to be there And the fact that you want to go back in this world, I can ask the question in another way.

Should I go back in this world, knowing that, of course, I made something, I had an impact on this world. and I don't know if it's the moment to talk about the gaze because the interaction is simple it's simple I mean, what interaction do you have in the world that using your gaze destroys nowhere in the real world it doesn't exist actually but going make the journey to see this make the thing a little bit more unbalanced than before and I think that this pushes a little bit more this piece of puzzle I don't have to do anything except being there and being there has an impact in the world, so that's the last piece of the puzzle actually and it's of course a way of thinking our world our capitalistic conception of the world the way that we are eating the world too

and what we want to keep for the next generation, for the next person after. And you talked about the epilogue. That's a very different moment because it's the only moment where you are with all the other people that made this experience. So, it might be an open end for this world because it reveals that you were not alone to be part of this world. We are together. So, if we change things all together, it might be going in another way. Yeah, it's interesting, the kind of culmination point. To go back to what you're saying in terms of the onboarding, I think I saw it Tuesday during the press preview, probably maybe mid-afternoon or so, and I think the instructions I got were something along the lines of this is maybe a living world and that I got the impression that it's a 15-minute slot, but you can stay or leave as long as you want type of thing. It's like, okay. So then when I went in, I've seen lots of different works. And so what I'm trying to do is kind of figure out the logic or seeing the progression. I was like, okay, this is a longer piece. When is a good place to end? And then I had like a whiteout. And I don't know if it was in the whiteout for like two or three or four minutes. And so then I was like, well, I guess it's done. And then I left. And then I was like, okay. I didn't quite. And coming back later, I know there's like a day night cycle.

but I remember talking to someone and they were like oh yeah your gaze is destructive and I remember seeing the icebergs but the best way I could describe it is like rather than seeing what you would imagine an iceberg could be it's almost like you're put into a middle of an iceberg model and you're seeing some reverse normals to see the shape of the tops and it's kind of like this abstracted floating fragments in the air that when you look at it there's like a shader that It deforms it, but it doesn't go away. It's just kind of like almost like gravity pushing on it, and then it fluctuates a little bit. And so I didn't get the sense that it was being destroyed, or at least I was having an impact, but then I was told, okay, well, then it's being destroyed. And I was like, okay, well, that's interesting because this piece is about this individual agency that's collective agency that everybody's agency together in this collective way is having this impact. but I can't see the trace of my individual agency which I think is metaphorically represented in this piece where I look at something I don't see that it's being destroyed

it's just kind of being modulated a little bit but by the end it's interesting to hear you say that coming together we all bear witness to our collective agency for how we've destroyed this world because the epilogue sort of like ends with this complete whiteout of everything where you see the culmination of all the destruction where everything is now vanished so yeah it's a piece that like this idea of collective agency is I think a persistent paradoxical challenging thing because you always want to see a trace of your agency in a piece in an interactive piece but then if you are trying to get to collective agency then it's everybody's actions together doing something but at that point can you still see the impact of what you've done and so this is a challenge that I don't know if anyone's necessarily solve where you feel like you've been able to sort of, unless you have a deliberation and you make a conscious choice and you think about it. Otherwise, if you're just independently making choices and everybody's making independent choices at that point, it just feels chaotic of like, well, it could have really gone any way. Did my actions even make any difference? Because

at the end of the day, it's like whatever the majority's actions were going to be. So this whole idea of collective agency is a challenge to think about, but in your piece, you're representing that collective agency, but there's no way for me to know what my actions did to the next person up until I get to the epilogue where we can see by the end, we can see that. So it's a sort of weird paradoxical thing that it's difficult to represent and to demonstrate within immersive experiences, but it's also really difficult to represent in reality. So I feel like this is a piece that is one of the most interesting approaches to this paradox that I've seen so far. But even then, it's not until I have this conversation that I really sort of like am able to reckon with that because I still can't see the individual traces of my agency to know how that had an impact. It's still recluded in a way that I can't see past a certain threshold or horizon because I can only see a little bit of the breadcrumbs but not the whole, up until we see the impacts of climate change. So anyway, I'd just love to hear any reflections on,

try to address this paradox of collective agency. It's something that's difficult for an individual to see in reality, but it's also difficult to see in immersive experiences. But I feel like in your piece, it's the best I've seen so far, conceptually, metaphorically, and poetically, of trying to address this paradox. Yeah, about the interaction, we didn't want a very immediate interaction. So we didn't want that the user immediately open a hole in the object. So it goes through a different phase. And the first one is that it's just moving the surface. But if you concentrate a little bit in a place, you will see the surface tearing and making a hole in it. And you will also see all that matter goes into particles floating in there. And this particle will appear in the screen.

so when you put off the headset in a way you will see the part you have destroyed but you will not recognize it from the other one so this is what you are talking about you have an impact on the result but you don't see exactly your impact in it and I just want to add a small point about the time because the time is very important also to understand that we are not alone but we are alone here in Venice because it's the game of the festival we make a new world a new universe a new generative universe each morning that dies at the end of each day but in other circumstances the world may run for all the time of an exhibition so if the exhibition runs for one month we start the universe at the day one of the exhibition and we will finish it at the last day of the exhibition 30 days later and it will be the same world

and there will be only one epilogue at the end and as a visitor here for the reason of the festival you could stay only 15 minutes but we wanted to be as free as possible if you want to stay there 2 hours it would be possible in the best condition of viewing the installation and you said that you lose a little bit of track of time this is exactly what we wanted to do I mean it's so beautiful, so sublime that you are alone, you lose time, you lose all sense of time, all sense of hour that can pass because obviously in the installation you get one day, one night that go quite fast so there's a lot of ingredients that participate for the visitor to live everyday life to keep it at the door and to enter in a very contemplative moment. And I think that the gaze, you could explain that you should stay on each part of the world,

of the universe, observe it, really, and then you have this feeling that something is destroying, and then you can see the impact that you have on one specific part of the world, but not the entire world, you know? and this can be only offered by taking time to be there in some way and i think that i will talk for myself very very deeply i think that there's also this question that you have to earn to be there in this universe it's so fragile it's so unique it's difficult to go there and it's the feeling that I had when I went in this part of the world, you want to sit there and just look for a long time what you have around you. And I think this is more related to my perception of those areas and my poetic attachment to this landscape, I think.

Yeah, and relative to time, I think the three times that I went, the first time I maybe saw a sunrise, and then the second time I saw the moon, and then the third time I was able to kind of see an entire day-night cycle. This is one of the things that I've noticed in VR, is that if I go into a piece and I don't see any perceived change or evolution, then I have a certain amount of tolerance for how long I can be in there because it's like, well, I don't see anything that's developing. And so I feel like this is a piece that has a slow evolution. I mean, the day-night cycle is, I don't know if it's around 15, 20, or 30 minutes, but it's a lot faster than a 24-hour cycle for sure. But coming back, I was able to perceive those changes because I was able to see the differences. But, yeah, I'm just curious to hear how you think about the progression of time and the speed at which you see things change because there's a certain amount of cadence that we want to see, like the rhythm and how fast it's going or how much we can perceive the change that's happening in a piece. And if we don't perceive any of the change, then people have less tolerance,

but it's also a durational piece that's trying to unfold over a long period of time. And so just curious to hear how you think about, like, how do you give those indications of things are progressing or changing or time passing? And it seems like you have a day-night cycle with, like, a sunrise, sunset, and the moon with the kind of reflections on the water that kind of help with that. There's, like, whiteouts. I saw a lightning storm another time. So there's other ways to see drastic changes. But just curious to hear how you think about demonstrating the progression so it's not just a static world, but it's actually dynamic and changing. and how you started to think about how to demonstrate that. So we wanted that the users see an evolving world. It was very important for us because each experience are unique, and it was very difficult to know if it would be interesting in a way because it's very contemplative. And the fact that it's evolving quickly and transforming,

I think each user will have a new experience, but each user will see something he likes and something that he will find sublime and beautiful. And I think it's one of the particularities of the project. The thing that is not a linear film, and all the spectators can talk with each other and exchange about what they saw and be surprised because one will be stuck into a whiteout and only see ghostly shapes, and the other one can see borealis. So it's very diverse. Is that the Oriel Borealis? I saw that one of the nights, sort of the magnetic thing in the sky, it was really cool. Yeah. So I think it's one of the particularities of the project, the fact that you live with a unique experience. You have seen something that you are the only one to see And we also try to translate a little bit the time that is very unique in the pole for example

except of day-to-night cycle that goes quite fast. Everything, every relation of time is stretching a lot in these kind of areas in the world. So if you are lost in a whiteout, it could run for hours. And if you are a tourist that goes there, you will not see anything except this whiteout. And I think that this is something that we accept in this world. I mean, it could be really frustrating for the people who go in and say, I only seen just a whiteout. But if you stay there just enough long, you may have like a huge iceberg that goes out, is white out, and you have the shadow that crosses the screen very slowly. So there's kind of something, yeah, we try to translate something of this unique feeling. and another part that were very important to us

was to take some elements that you only find in those areas the northern lights, the aurora borealis, the whiteout, the snowstorm those kind of things that you can just find in those areas we choose some of them that make the world run and again we create a kind of rule about how the weather is changing. But we also talk to scientists on this point of view, on this perspective, saying that if we create a balanced world at the beginning, it will have to be unbalanced at the end because of the impact of every visitor inside. But what will be this world? What will this world be in more than just no more ice? and this is where it's interesting too because with our discussion with our scientists we try to figure out what could happen in an unbalanced climate in those areas

and it gives you again more and more possibilities about what you see as a visitor and it might be the future of these areas but it's still a unique experiment And if you go at the very end of this living world, at the end of the month of the exhibition, at the end of the day, you will have a lot of lightning and thunder and no more ice. But still, it's visually stunning, I think, to see those lightning everywhere on this infinite sea. But you don't see more than that. and I think that the people, because they lose the sense of time, they lose the track of time inside, actually they stay there for quite long, even if there's nothing to see. I mean, I'm not saying that there are nothing to see, but even if there is no storytelling, even if everything is slow, everything is contemplative,

people stay there, actually. yeah for me i'm looking for perceived changed or seeing something that is like evolving or changing in a way that usually in the medium we can go outside and stare at the ocean and meditate but i feel like in immersive experiences it's usually got like an arc of a story or a beginning middle and end this piece the beginning middle and end is sort of beyond the capacity of one person to see and so it ends up being this durational take some i'm curious if you've thought about having like an accelerated version in any capacity if that kind of ruins the whole kind of point i think that it's not the point of the experiment to get an accelerated version we discuss a lot about the time about the piece and the only acceleration that we had was this night and day cycle but the very first version was okay let's let's stay on the north pole time and if it's six months with sunny every day, it will be sunny.

But then this is where the fiction comes and enters in our world. It's not the real world that you see in the VR headset. It's our vision. It's an artistic vision. It's a poetic vision. It's a contemplative vision of this world. So we didn't want to stay on that very real feeling of the world. We wanted to be more than that. And then we use this artifact. But we don't want to get an accelerated version of this world. And I would say also that there is already a sense of acceleration because, of course, at the beginning everything goes well and you have a lot of ice, you have a lot of icebergs, you have a lot of glaciers everywhere. So everywhere where you look, you have this feeling of the world is full. but when the installation runs obviously there are less and less ice of the time and so you have this feeling of acceleration

of the climate itself that change faster than expected and the more and more it change the more and more it begin to be like a loop an infinite loop and you have less ice and when you have less ice it will disappear and vanishing faster than if you have a big amount of ice And I think that we do have this aspect in the installation about the acceleration. This is maybe the only acceleration that we keep in the installation. Nice. And what's next for the White Saboteur? So here in Venice, it was the premiere. So an important step for us to show the project to the audience. It's a three, four-year project to create. so next we will try to show it in other festival but we will see maybe we can add a small thing about how we work with scientists because I think that's part of a very important aspect of the universe

and do you want to talk about more the graphical because that's part of, I mean we are talking about contemplative but it's very important, you want to talk about it? exactly, all the assets of the world The glacier, the iceberg, comes from real data of scientists. We decided, of course, not to go there and take photographs, but we talked with scientists that give us some photos to create photogrammetry of all the elements. So it comes from real glacier, real iceberg, and it was really important for us. Of course, it could be possible to modelize it manually on 3D software, but it was important because we have shapes that are more organic now and also on a more conceptual level. It's important for the viewer that it comes from real glaciers, real iceberg. And when you think about the layer that it can add to the experiment, it means that the technology that we are using is not neutral

because actually you enter in the headset, it's a virtual world, but it's real icebergs that are living somewhere on the planet. So you are destroying a real iceberg in some way by using this kind of technology. This was important for us to not to put this level because as a visitor you don't understand, but to keep this in mind also. We are using a technology that might be not really benefit for our world right now. so what do you hope is the most exalted or best action that people could take in order to address some of these larger issues that you're talking about what would you hope for a call to action for what people can do after seeing the white subitor or just in general to be in more right relationship to the world around us i'm not sure that we want to get a call to action because as we say it's a very unique experiment and you are alone questioning your choice so if you begin just this question for us it might be the beginning of the call to action that we can

have but if i wanted to be more radical i would say that you may be in the stone that you shouldn't go there to see the last iceberg living and maybe give them the possibility to live their life as they want yeah i'm i'm personifying a lot the iceberg for me it's very living material and i think that would be the best conclusion and of course it changed a little bit the point of view the perspective how you see the world as a big ball that we can consume or not and what we want to live for the next generation. Also, when we talk with scientists, they told us that it's been decades, they are writing paper with a lot of numbers, statistics, and of course, it's extremely important to have this paper, but it doesn't have a big impact on the public. And with our project, we wanted to have

an intimate experience, and probably the audience will feel more implicated so the audience will be more involved in both subjects some emotions that might come up from something that just looking at the abstract data is harder to get that awesome as we start to wrap up I'd love to hear what each of you think is the ultimate potential of virtual reality and immersive storytelling and what it might be able to enable? I think that's a question for you about space and time. It's something that we had about the feedback of a piece here in Venice. Some people said this piece could only be existing in an immersive project and we are very happy about that and I think it comes from different reasons. One of them is the fact that VR is an art of space. I think a good piece of VR

is when the user feels into a space and it was really our intention that the user has something very sensitive and feel into that world. And feel it in his bone, because actually it's also a physical experiment. You don't have the cold, of course you don't feel the storm, but it's still physical, actually. so if you enter in this world with this kind of sensitive door you might be more involved and the VR give you this opportunity Awesome, well thanks so much for joining me here on the podcast and The White Saboteur is a very abstract poetic piece that's a little bit of a puzzle that had me come back to it again and again to try to understand the logic, the structure, the design intent and so yeah, I feel like it's this really interesting metaphoric representation of some of these paradoxes of how we handle what's happening

with climate change. And I feel like that your piece kind of reflects a lot of those within the piece itself and that by understanding the piece, it helps me understand the paradox of what we're facing with climate change, which is how do we change our individual actions that we can't necessarily see the impact of those actions. And so, yeah, I'll be thinking about this a lot. And it's a very thought-provoking piece and I very much appreciate the poetry and the visual aesthetics and the kind of sublime beauty that you're able to create with it. So, yeah, thanks again for joining me on the podcast to help break it all down. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thanks so much for listening to the Voices of VR podcast. And I just want to say that I'm really trying to live into the transformation economy, meaning I want to give away all this information for free, make it publicly accessible for not only you, but the entire community. And if you find value in that, then please do consider supporting me on Patreon. You know, I'm on this journey of trying to reach my 1,000 true fans. And if I have just $5 a month from that 1,000, I'll be in a much more solid and stable financial position.

So really need your help to be able to get to that point. So if you enjoy what I'm doing here at the Voices of VR podcast, then please do consider supporting me at patreon.com slash Voices of VR. Thanks for listening. Thank you.