“The Culturespaces company is the largest in this market segment” – Kommersant FM

Kommersant FM columnist Dmitry Butkevich talks about which immersive art centers are the most popular in the world.

Let’s talk again about digital art, which is either capturing new art territories and minds, or is a temporary blip on the art horizon. Future will tell.

For now, let’s remember how it started. The first notable institution in the field of digital art has opened in the French capital. It was 2018, quite recently, in general. The Parisian center called Atelier des Lumieres was opened by Culturespaces, which, as we will see later, is now the largest in this market segment.

This center has become a reference center for creating storytelling formats. Digital storytelling, that is, a non-linear documentary story using animation, musical accompaniment, voice-over, and all this with the active use of video projection, which allows the image to spread across all surfaces of the hall. Floor, ceiling, walls… Everything is used. There is the following data: in the first nine months of operation, Atelier des Lumieres was visited by 1.3 million people.

Also in 2018, in Tokyo, local “digital artists” from the TeamLab group opened a museum called Borderless (like “Without Borders”), where they showed exclusively their own creativity. This space was visited by 2.3 million viewers in the first year.

Experts note a feature of immersive art platforms that makes them similar to the world of digital: the desire to transform into global networks, which, they believe, will determine global art trends in the coming years.

Paris-based Culturespaces has eight premises around the world: three in France, two in South Korea, Germany, the Netherlands, and the USA. These are absolute leaders. London Lightroom already has a second location in Korea. British Cosm opens in the US. Outernet Global has found two more sites in America. Australians from Grande Experiences have two premises: in Melbourne and the American Indianapolis. The Korean digital art group D’Strict already has several venues in its homeland. The Americans from the Artechouse group have premises in Washington, New York and Miami.