DIAGNOSIA VR Experience to Premiere at Sundance Film Festival

Diagnosia Trailer from Mengtai Zhang on Vimeo.

"DIAGNOSIA," the virtual reality experience, will have its North American Premiere at Sundance Film Festival in-person in New Frontier and online. Check out the screening times and ticket information below!

The VR experience of Diagnosia, alumnus of IDFA's DocLab R&D program in collaboration with MIT Open Documentary Lab, is a sensorial immersion in artist Mengtai Zhang's recollections of a military-operated rehab camp for internet addicts in China, and a voice given to those who were locked there by their parents. In these camps, internet addiction and other issues that teens face are treated, sometimes rather violently, as severe mental disorders, and social control is exercised under the banner of medicine and education.

In 2007, at age 16, Mengtai was sent to the rehab in Beijing by his parents against his will. He later found out that the rehab camp had been using patients as research subjects and publishing extensively on the medicalization of internet addiction, which raises questions of medical ethics.

A highly individual experience, Diagnosia is accompanied by an uncanny soundscape composed by artist Lemon Guo, which mixes real sounds and algorithmically manipulated samples that interact with the audience's movements in real time.

Sundance Screenings

Friday, January 21 at 11:00 AM - 8:00 PM MST
Saturday, January 22 at 11:00 AM - 8:00 PM MST
Sunday, January 23 at 11:00 AM - 8:00 PM MST
Monday, January 24 at 1:00 PM - 8:00 PM MST
Tuesday, January 25 at 1:00 PM - 8:00 PM MST

Online Viewing

Start Thursday, January 20 at 11:00 AM MST
Available Until Monday, January 31 11:59 PM MST

Tickets can be found here.

Watch the trailer here:

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