“The future of Cinema and Museums”. Theoretical and Historical Notes around Immersive Audiovisual Spaces in Barcelona

Abstract

Taking the opening of IDEAL, a new space for immersive exhibition in Barcelona, as the point of departure, this article explores, both theoretically and historically, immersive visual experiences. It saims are to situate the new exhibition spaces in their audiovisual tradition, to understand its curating model, and to evaluate their importance in today’s exhibition panorama. To do so, it begins by collecting different definitions of the immersive audiovisual experience. It then turns to the history of the media, to find previous experiences of technological innovations and audience fascination that allow bridges to be established with contemporary immersive initiatives. The article concludes that, despite their rhetoric of novelty, immersive exhibition spaces such as IDEAL perpetuate previous models from the history of cinema and art exhibition (cinema of attractions, panoramas, white cube), while read apting them to the technologies available now.