CPH:DOX 2019: VR and DOX:AWARD Standouts at the Sweet Sixteen Edition

Though I’m a nonfiction cinephile who’s been attending Copenhagen’s always invigorating CPH:DOX for nearly half a decade, this past 2019 edition (March 20-31) proved especially delightful when it came to the virtual realm. Conveniently located on the top floor of the fest’s Kunsthal Charlottenborg (contemporary art museum) headquarters, the VR:Cinema and its accompanying Inter:Active installations had me raving in a way I normally reserve for the moving image.

While Eliza McNitt’s three-part (seven-figure dealmaking) planetarium-in-a-headset Spheres was wowing the crowds as it did at last year’s Sundance, a trio of less buzzy gems had me most excited about the future of immersive media. Disparate in subject, they nonetheless shared what I’m hoping is a harbinger of a “slow VR movement” — a focus less on the bells and whistles (or rather, controllers and buttons) of the tech, and more on the creation of a contemplative experience for the user to digest. (Personally, I usually prefer to be a passive participant with the artistic vision firmly in control, rather than an active avatar in some complicated video game simulation.)

To that end, and as a longtime fan of industrial music godfather Blixa Bargeld, I was inclined to like Maya Puig’s Das Totale Tanz Theater 360, which turns Einstürzende Neubauten’s “Si Takka Lumi” into a mind-blowing, music-video-meets-VR experience.

To read all about the highlights visit Documentary magazine.