GOGHING
DIGITAL
THE LATEST BLEND OF ART AND TECHNOLOGY
Text and photos by KATHERINE CHENG and ZANDER LEONG
42 JUNE 2021
O
MINOUS MUSIC PULSES through a cavernous room as sharp green leaves emerge from the ceiling, smoothly falling until they settle on the ground. At once, flowers bloom, filling all four sides of the expansive space with a deep purple glow. Then the music halts and the walls turn pitch black. Vincent Van Gogh’s painting “Irises,” along with dozens of his other pieces, comes to life at the “Immersive Van Gogh” exhibit in San Francisco’s historic Fillmore West venue. The most recent installation of the Immersive Van Gogh project, the exhibit was first created in
Paris in 2019, and has since been on display in Toronto before making its Bay Area debut this year. Blending fine art with technology has been a growing movement, such as the 2017 film “Loving Vincent,” animated entirely in oil paintings, and the “Meet Vincent Van Gogh” exhibit, which turns his art interactive. Immersive Van Gogh, however, brings audiences on a new journey. Using 300,000 cubic feet of projections, Van Gogh’s paintings develop into animated landscapes around the exhibit’s single room. They’re complemented by a soaring soundtrack, surrounding view-
