Ascension is a VR installation created by Paul Boereboom and Leon Rogissart that extends the borders of opera and the way we look at reality. Ascension started from the concept of a floating tank: a saltwater pool in which you receive no stimulus, allowing your mind to unwind. You experience weightlessness, which is essential in order to reconnect with the self. This concept translated into a VR experience in which Boereboom and Rogissart set out to find a balance between the heart and the head. How do you achieve that balance? How do the two interact with each other?
With Ascension, the artists create a space to answer these questions, offering a canvas on which the visitor may reflect and associate for themselves. A place where we may briefly let go of the desires of our physical bodies and the outside world and do no more than exist.
The VR experience releases you from time and space through a delicate combination of images and opera music. Afterwards you will be gently taken out of the artificial world and brought back to reality.