Why Experiential Is Capturing Hearts and Minds

Yayoi Kusama’s infinity room, David Hockney’s Bigger and Closer, Rafik Anadol at the Serpentine, pretty much every event at 180 The Strand. These have been some of the biggest selling shows in London over the last 5 to 10 years. What do they have in common? They are all, to some degree, immersive or experiential art exhibits.

Over the last two decades we’ve seen a sensational rise in the blockbuster art show. Post-Covid London’s theatre business came roaring back (unlike Broadway). Without a doubt in this digital, box set, streaming age, there is still a huge appetite for going out and experiencing the arts.

Immersive art recognises this hunger for a visceral response in both body and mind - and rewards it. This isn’t a new thing. Victorian Londoners would queue to view huge cinematic painted panoramas, atmospherically lit with epic scope and beguiling detail. Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel was absolutely intended as an immersive art experience, the viewer is elevated by cascades of Angels and biblical renderings into a transcendent, awestruck, state of mind.

Now here’s the leap… Our hunger for experience, and advancing technology, have come together to create the most amazing contemporary spaces to beguile and thrill us in this way. We have the Outernet at Tottenham Court Road, the huge canvas that is the big screen at Piccadilly Circus. Ocean Outdoor runs an immersive space underground beneath the Piccadilly Screen, and W1 Curates have an amazing area under Flannels on Oxford Street as well as the screen that clads the building. That is genuinely to name only a few.

We absolutely relish creating work for these kinds of spaces. The work is so much more challenging in terms of resolution, frame rate, environmental factors, and testing time - but the creative opportunities are phenomenal.

We’ve done some work we’re really proud of in this sector. In 2020, frustratingly at the height of covid, we took over Piccadilly Circus working with agency Anomaly and their client

Ancestry. We told the 'backstory' of Piccadilly Circus recreating the iconic advertising in that space over the span of 100 years. Such was the impact, the piece went on to win a Lion at Cannes. Most recently we created work at the Outernet for FCB and client Kleenex. Kleenex have done a collaboration with legendary artist Mr Doodle - we adorned the Outernet with a 360 experience of his art as Mr Doodle himself sat in the space creating some of his iconic work.

Outernet has had some amazing content, despite the fact it’s only been around for a short period of time. Pixel Artwork’s Butterfly Trail was a great, and interactive, use of the space. Unit 9 did a stunning takeover for Nike's 'Win on Air’ campaign and the giant, interactive Tetris game was massive fun. W1 Curates and the Flannels store are to be applauded for consistently great content much of which is super creative and non commercial - do check them out.

I think because of these great digital installations Piccadilly Circus is a tourist destination, Outernet has become a Tourist destination - Times Square is a global phenomenon - people love and thrill to these spaces and these experiences. The huge screen in Euston - Printworks Manchester - these are our modern day Frescos! They may not last 500 years but the challenge is to ask, are we making the most iconic, sensational use of these screens that we could be? We ask agencies and clients to please give us the chance to make something phenomenal in these spaces that will blow people away and reward the inquisitive - we can do this!

Ric Comline is executive creative director at Blind Pig