Glacial Reality

THE IMMERSIVE REALITY

The purpose of Glacial Reality, a virtual reality experience, is to give life to a location’s cultural heritage through a fictional work. We generate the future from a tangible location where the visitor takes place. This ongoing game between present time and a virtual universe makes Glacial Reality a one-of-a-kind project that goes beyond an ordinary virtual reality experience. It is a project bound to be rolled out throughout the world.

To enjoy this experience, the user takes place, alone, within a cube of a few square-meter diameter and wears a helmet that takes him to a new audio and visual universe within seconds. For the user, the virtual experience begins in the physical cube. Suddenly, the cube walls cave in and the user discovers the magnitude of the fictional universe he was carried into.

Inside the dome, the atmosphere is puzzling. The scenery provides some visual references since some of the main buildings were preserved, while others are damaged or have completely disappeared. Time seems to stand still underneath this frosted dome. Each Glacial Reality project is designed in collaboration with a citizen artist who uses the dome as a playground to share his/her vision of his/her city’s cultural heritage. It can evoke memories of a more or less distant past or anticipate the future, while respecting the history of the cultural heritage. This combination between past and future, cultural heritage and the artist’s vision surely creates something unique. This is the starting point of the experience.

Making-of of the event

A DOME, A VISION

Each Glacial Reality project is designed in collaboration with a citizen artist who uses the dome as a playground to share his/her vision of his/her city’s cultural heritage. It can evoke memories of a more or less distant past or anticipate the future, while respecting the history of the cultural heritage. This combination between past and future, cultural heritage and the artist’s vision surely creates something unique. This is the starting point of the experience.

Samuel's vision

Ruins have always fascinated me. They are artistic, political and historical figures that watch us, tell us tales, interrogate us.

They reveal countless stories and interrogate us on time and memory. They bring us back to our own frailty.

I have always found the image of children playing among ruins to be poetic. In a world rising from its ashes, children are having fun. They explore those ruins, redefine them through their own imagination and the collective memories they contain.

As those children, I play with the venue. With my memories, my ideas and the memory of the walls surrounding the square. I’m seeking to find where we come from to know where we are going. I remember the past, mine and ours, to see and feel what has been, what is and what will be.

A look both personal and collective on a meaningful venue in our city. A venue indivisible from the history of the city and its faubourg. Images acting as windows towards another world. A dream shaped by figures and colors.

A way for me to create new images from old ones.

Some kind of magic. To look at the world through a new perspective. A postcard from the past in a D’Youville Square from the future.

I remember.

Media presence
 

    Une virée spatio-temporelle pour le moins déroutante qui fait revivre l’histoire et l’architecture du cœur artistique de Québec, sur 360 degrés, en plus de projeter le spectateur dans un médium dont l’avenir s’annonce rempli de promesses.
    Normand Provencher, LE SOLEIL

 On plonge dans une oeuvre immersive à la direction artistique magnifique qui s’avère être un astucieux mélange entre la poésie et la pédagogique.
    Pierre Blais, CKRL

...l’expérience immersive de quelques minutes, à mi-chemin entre le jeu vidéo et le cinéma, intrigue et fascine à la fois...
Yves Leclerc, JOURNAL DE QUÉBEC