Festival
Athens International Literature Festival
The festival wanted literature you step into instead of reading on paper, where words become places, sounds and sensations, and open to everyone.
4
pods installed
300
screenings delivered
3
days open to the public
What we curated
Here, words are not read on paper. They become places, sounds and sensations all around you. The program opened with 360° screenings that travel from the cosmic, philosophical science fiction of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, as Stanley Kubrick pictured it, to the dystopian, restless imagination of Philip K. Dick.
Alongside them ran a literary and audiovisual document: the writer John Hull’s journey into blindness, built from the audio diaries he actually recorded.
A new kind of poetry, and a way into the future of literature that is open to everyone. As our program put it: come and dream with your eyes open.
What we installed
Four pods in the festival’s ART/TECH area, presented by Cosmote Telekom: each a swivel stool on its own low platform, in a room washed in violet light, with a film projected on the far wall.
How it ran
Three days and 300 screenings, about a hundred a day across the four pods. The program was made for the festival’s whole public, whether or not they had tried VR before or read the books behind it.
“Everyone should try this. Culture and art, combined with state-of-the-art technology, create a new experience and connection with these worlds.”
Haris Doukas, Mayor of Athens
“My first time. It is so good, I am afraid I will be wanting to live inside there.”
Lena Divani, writer
