Interactive Theatre and Virtual Reality Combine in WHIST at Gulbenkian Arts Centre

WHIST is an ambitious and extraordinary Virtual Reality meets promenade theatre experience created by UK-based dance company AΦE. Incorporating 360˚ interactive film, soundscapes and an architectural art installation, this pioneering prodction creates an environment that blurs all boundaries - between consciousness and unconsciousness, reality and fiction, the physical and the virtual.

Inspired by Sigmund Freud's dream theory, WHIST invites audiences on a journey into the unconscious mind, where instincts will be the guide through a narrative of surreal dreams and fears. Combining Physical Theatre and Mixed Reality Technology, the production brings the magic of theatre together with the type of special effects only possible in the world of film.

WHIST incorporates 360˚ interactive film, soundscapes and an architectural art installation to create an environment that blurs all boundaries - between consciousness and unconsciousness, reality and fiction, the physical and the virtual. Immersed in a world of unfolding dreams, the viewer chooses his or her own path, creating a truly unique narrative dependent on choice - their personal decisions made through the course of the mesmerising hour-long experience.

Enter a large open room and the viewer is faced with a series of large-scale, geometric objects. This is the real world, but once the VR headset is worn, we are in dreamland, invited into the world of three main characters, figures lifted from Freud's own patient case studies.

"We had many conversations with psychoanalysts working at the Freud Museum and were introduced to several patient case studies. We thought: 'What if those patients formed one single family?' And there we were, completely immersed in their worlds...Freud's own theories about fears, dreams, symbolism in dreams and the notion of the unconscious is just the beginning." Esteban & Aoi (AΦE)

76 is the number of narrative possibilities that exist, to create a unique experience for each viewer. No simple 'red pill vs. blue pill' format, WHIST implements interactive elements, subtly woven into the film to effect unconscious decision making. This puts the production at the very forefront of immersive storytelling innovation - leaving the strings that bind and pull at all times invisible. Regardless of choice being on either a conscious or an unconscious level, however, one thing is clear: once a decision has been made, the story's perspective will be drawn in One Direction.

"As always, we are both attracted by the unknown, and we wanted to exploit the full potential of VR to achieve a total immersion of our audience. The audience, in fact, is the live element of the performance. Everything else exists according to its individual decisions. The viewer is his own director. His decisions influence the entire perspective on the story. We hope people will leave with a strong sense of the narrative possibilities and their implications; we hope people will think about the many other ways of looking at things. We all have the tendency to forget all this in our daily lives.

"From a technical point of view, it was challenging for us to come up with solutions to incorporate more than 110 minutes of film in high resolution with interactive 3D sound, and to create a seamless interactivity between real objects and the world within the VR headset. WHIST represents innovation in theatre making and touring formats, as well as pushing boundaries in Virtual Reality Storytelling." AΦE

The creative collaborators of WHIST include global creative studio Happy Finish as technology partner, composers Scott Gibbons and Jozef van Wissem (winner of the Cannes Best Soundtrack Award) and set designer James Shaw.

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