The “immersive experience” is one of the defining scams of our young century, in which the content-hungry and reality-starved will pay good money to take selfies in a ball pit, or pretend to be locked in a room by an MFA candidate in a top hat.
To be “immersed” means to be inside of something, but buildings already accomplish that, so we now understand “immersive” to mean a building-sized gimmick. Immersive Van Gogh poses the question: “What if Starry Night were a giant screen saver?” Meow Wolf’s “mind-bending art installations” offer a return to the womb with their warm, EDM-hued tunnels. The Museum of Ice Cream allows adults to ride a pink slide into a pool of sprinkles.
