Tribeca Immersive 2019 Diary, Part 3: Being In It and Of It
Inside the visceral, shocking World War I experience ‘War Remains’
A portal opens before me and I step through. I’m inside the Western Front of The First World War.
I take a deep breath and steel myself for what’s to come. I see fighting all around me as I enter the trench. I quickly back myself into a corner. With my back against a physical wall, this place seems the safest, for now. I’ve almost forgotten that I’m wearing a VR headset as the sound of gunfire fills my ears. I peer into a nearby periscope and see only chaos.
I clutch at the wall behind me and am startled to feel a cloth bulge. I turn to see a knapsack hanging prosaically on the wall. The ground rattles once more and all four walls around me start to shake. The podcaster Dan Carlin (Hardcore History) is in my ears, talking about how the non-stop sound of artillery during WWI drove some people mad. I can now understand why.
The vibrating stops and I feel safe for the moment. I am alone, with only the sound of Carlin’s voice to keep me company. But even he disappears at times.
And yet there’s more here to see, more to touch. Several dead rats are hung upon a line, their bodies equally spaced out, like some form of perverse laundry. Then, I realize there are severed limbs all around me. The bodies of dead men are draped across every surface. A rosary dangles in front of me, its owner no longer part of this mortal realm. Another man grasps a broken pocket watch; he’s also gone.
Dare I touch this hanging arm? These hanging rats?
Are these items virtual or real?
Then: something more ominous on the horizon. It’s one thing to know intellectually that tanks were used during the fighting in WWI. It’s another thing to see said tank roll by, destroying everything and everyone in its path. I crouch down in fear, feeling the stone barricade underneath my finger tips. Through the barbed wire, I see soldiers a few feet away. They fire at the enemy and then fall, collapsing onto the dirt, as the area around me begins to fill with yellow smoke.
My pulse is racing; my hands shake.
It’s mustard gas. Is this what terror feels like?
Panic rises within me as I realize I can no longer see the ground.
I’m blind.
War Remains, presented by Dan Carlin, is a multi-sensory free-roam VR experience where participants can put on a VR headset, headphones, and backpack, and explore a real-life set that measures 25 by 25 feet. The piece is meant to be a “time machine-like dive” into the Western Front of WWI. War Remains is directed by Brandon Oldenburg, and produced by MWM Immersive with development by Flight School Studio and audio design by Skywalker Sound.
Overall, War Remains is both what I expected and not what I expected. I knew ostensibly what this experience was “about.” And, yet, actually going through War Remains is a whole other thing: it’s shocking, overwhelming, intense, and heart-poundingly visceral. It’s certainly not a VR experience for everyone, particularly if you are sensitive to gunfire, violence, and death; more than a few participants do choose to exit the experience before it’s over (simply raise your arm for assistance).
War Remains is the next best thing to a time machine; Carlin says it’s an experience that “refuses to be ignored,” and it’s hard to argue with that. By the end of my 12 minutes inside, I was actually glad that creators have have chosen not to throw actual dust upon its participants or fill our nostrils with the scents of the trenches and explosions. The experience is intense enough between the wind effects and realistic props and floor shakers and 360 visuals—suspension of belief: consider it achieved.
While I may never join the military, I may never fight in a battle, and I may never visit the front lines of a war, the “remains” of this particular war are enough for me to consider what it must have been like — this war that was said to “end all wars” (and, oh, how wrong they were).
At the end of War Remains, as the headset is lifted off, I’m surprised to find myself breathless and shaking.
And as I regain my composure, a chill runs down my spine, as I read this quote from Paul Nash written on the wall by the exit:
“…I shall not forget it as long as I live. I have seen the most frightful nightmare of a country more conceived by Dante or Poe than by nature, unspeakable, utterly indescribable….
“I may give you some idea of its horror, but only being in it and of it can ever make you sensible of its dreadful nature….”
War Remains runs April 26 — May 4 as part of the Tribeca Film Festival’s Immersive Program. Tickets are sold out.
The piece is expected tour to Austin this summer.
Listen to our interview with associate producer Brandon Padveen about War Remains.
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