'The Revenant' Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu's New Project Could Change Film Forever
Carne y Arena, Oscar-winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu's latest work, is six and a half minutes long. It can be seen by only one person at a time. And although it debuted at the Cannes film festival this past May, it's not exactly a film.
To experience it, you had to drive twenty minutes to an airplane hangar filled with sand and surrounded by steel fencing, take off your shoes, and don an Oculus Rift headset, headphones, and a backpack. Carne puts the participant in the Sonoran Desert at nightfall, just as a group of immigrants attempting to cross the border illegally are confronted by Border Patrol agents. The title means "flesh and sand," and the experiential installation is as visceral as it sounds-a fully realised virtual reality that is at once deeply isolating and profoundly intimate.
Over the summer, Carne traveled to the Prada Foundation in Milan, which cofunded the project, and then headed to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Tlatelolco University Cultural Center in Mexico City.
Describing the emotions stirred up by the work is difficult, because whereas most VR is about watching, Carne is about being. "You cannot chat or take a picture," Iñárritu says. "You can just experience it in one way, in one space, and that's it.
You Might Also Like
