Adrian Hon is a game designer, author, and former CEO and founder of Six to Start. While at Six to Start, Adrian co-created Zombies, Run! (the world’s bestselling smartphone fitness game, with over ten million players), led the design of Marvel Move, won Best of Show at SXSW, and worked on multiple projects with Disney Imagineering. He is currently Associate Artist at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, specialising in immersive art.

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These are live-blogged notes from a session at NEXT25 in Hamburg. Posts will be improved over the next few days.

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Why is immersion so popular now? Why do we want to be so immersed right now? For Adrian, “immersion” means imaginary transportation to a designed world. It might be in a museum, it might be for entertainment, where you go to a theme park and feel like you’re in Star Wars or Harry Potter.

People connect the idea of technology and immersion. Apple and Meta’s marketing is all about the immersive dimensions of their new mixed reality products. Or look at The Sphere. In order to be immersed, we need some cutting-edge technology, they suggest.

It’s more complicated than that. The idea of immersion goes back centuries, even if the word is fairly new. People don’t really start using it until 1990, and then it really ticks up around 2010. 1990 was the birth of the idea of “cyberspace”. But now it’s everywhere.

Immersion, immersion everywhere

Every new museum seems to have immersive spaces, which in practice means lots of projectors. We see it in entertainment, like Bridge Command in London. Or Meow Wolf in the US, which is a form of art. This is all technology.

Plenty of people watch Bridgerton. They love it so much, they want to be inside it. And you can now go to The Queen’s Ball, where you can live it. But this doesn’t need technology. These experiences are part of Netflix’s big push to convert unused malls into these experiences.

Art galleries are describing their installations as “immersive”. Projection mapping dates back to the late 70s, though. Immersive theatre has its roots in the 1960s environmental theatre. Some hark back to the 1960s “happenings”, participatory art events. Or RenFaires in the US.

The technological underpinnings of immersion

But they all use technology — just different tech than we use today. In the 1900s in Paris, they used hydraulics and painted backdrops to create a ship experience. Back in the 1800s, they had panoramas, with wrap-around 360º paintings of different landscapes. These were the immersive technologies of their age.

People have been spending lots of money to feel like they’re in a different place for centuries. Henry VIII used to dress up as Robin Hood and “surprise” his wife…

The difference now is that we have lived through a century of mass media, media that only works when you sit and passively watch it. We’re reaching the end of the line for these technologies. The Sphere is as good as cinema gets. You can’t get a bigger screen.

The desire for interactive experiences

People now want interaction. We lack interactive experiences in our lives. 200 years ago, everything was an immersive experience. Now, it’s something different to come to a conference and touch people. And it’s easier — cheaper — to make immersive experiences. Centuries ago, experiences were only for the rich.

Now there are blockbuster LARPS like Eclipse, which costs €900 to attend, and takes place in a disused film set. Embodied experience is something people really want, when they’re spending the whole day looking at screens. Immersive experiences offer this — digital experiences don’t. You can touch, smell, and hear. You move using your legs. People are looking for safe embodied interaction.

People are also looking for transformation. That’s what they’re promised. Most don’t achieve this — it’s marketing hype. Many of the experiences are quite passive. You walk around, you watch. But people want more; a moment of transformation, something bodily.

That’s what the Eglington Tournament was about centuries ago. That’s what the Star Wars Hotel was about. There’s something happening here, where our wealth and spare time are allowing us to indulge in these experiences we can’t get from screens.