Project xx1
no-profit
Viale Prospero Colonna, 101
00149 Roma
ITALY
P.I. 15203931009
C.F. 97938120587
© Project xx1 2024
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About
An immersive experience revolves around its guests. Project xx1 led thousands of adults, youngsters and kids through immersive experiences: multi-sensorial, complex, and multi-layered narrative worlds.
Our worlds are plots to explore, inhabit, and discover, where everyone is invited to look for his own path, traveling through them. An engaging, artistic, and immersive experience inspired by contemporary arts, narrative trends, and gaming.
Project xx1 is formed by a stable group, that develops ad hoc collaborations for each new creation.
The team
Riccardo Brunetti (Roma, 1976)
Experimental psychologist and theatre creator, he carries out researches on performance since 1999. He has been working as an international trainer since 2005, in more than 20 countries all over the world. Struck by the encounter with immersive theatre in 2013 he is now completely dedicated to creating immersive experiences with Project xx1, group he co-founded. He is in charge of the artistic Productions both nationally and internationally.
Anna Maria Avella (Foggia, 1985)
Project xx1 Co-founder, she is a trainer, performer and creator. Intercultural expert, thanks to participation in numerous projects in the Youth in action e Erasmus+ programmes. Her research ranges from the pedagogical application of immersive performance to the artistic experimentation of multimedial storytelling. For Project xx1, she is the Training and the International activities coordinator.
Sandra Albanese (Putignano, BA, 1983)
Project xx1’s co-founder, she is the coordinator of the Applied area. An applied theatre expert, she is working in immersive theatre as costume designer, performer, creator, and set-up expert since the first Italian experiences of Amaranta/Orma Fluens (from 2004).
Silvia Ferrante (Frosinone, 1978)
Primary school teacher and educational researcher, she works as creator and actress in immersive theatre since the first Italian experiences created by Amaranta/Orma Fluens (2015). She is interested in the pedagogical application of immersive theatre. Project xx1’s co-founder, she coordinates the Education activities.
Alessandro D'Ambrosi (Roma, 1984)
Author, director and performer in theatre, television and cinema. Collaborates permanently with Project xx1 from 2017 as creator, dramaturg, director and performer. His research with Project xx1 focuses on the development of immersive dynamics and on the constant widening of the tools to engage audiences.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an immersive experience?
Do not expect exactly what you are stepping in, as secrecy is one of the essential ingredients. It is functional to the building of the experience by each participant: if you don’t know, you must discover, and what you will find out depends mostly on you.
Expect an individual experience. Immersive experiences are built to encourage parting from the group you came with.
Do not expect to participate only with eyes and ears (and mind, meaning rational understanding). An immersive experience stimulates aspects of your feeling and perceiving that are generally not touched by other shows.
An immersive experience is not a pre-packaged, run-of-the-mill performance, identical for all, as when you go to the movies, for instance. Going to the cinema or watching a traditional theatre show is for us like going to a fixed menu restaurant: someone decided what you and everyone else are going to eat tonight - you can discard something if you want, but your choice is very limited. In an immersive experience you are in front of a buffet, where your choices in a certain moment influence what you are going to taste later, as in a butterfly effect.
Most probably ou will not have an assigned seat: if you do, you'll probably have a chance to leave it later on.
Immersive experiences are conceived in depth: sometimes they start much earlier and end much later than the moment you participate. Some people feel the need to participate several times, since the experience can be deeply different each time.
You won't have to interact with the experience at all costs. The immersive experience is not a participatory theatre show: the choice about how and how much you are involved is always yours. If you want, you can simply witness what is happening, or accept the invitation to interact.
Maybe you won't remain your usual self for the whole time.
Sometimes immersive experiences become a learning tool and become Immersive Training and Immersive Education.
Why all the mistery?
Because revealing more would ruin the discovery process, that depends on you. We create the world: you have to explore it.
Why can't I find any videos of the experiences?
You can find videos that are connected to the experiences. Video is a documentation form that limits this kind of work: it dictates a point of view on something (the director's) and this is quite distant from the core of an immersive experience. If you want to get an idea about immersive experiences, better read the accounts of who participated (you can find some of them, in Italian, here). You can find some video fragments here, here, and here.
What's a Premium experience?
It is a way to participate to an immersive experience that is especially intense and involving, offering unique possibilities, inaccessible to other participants. Premium tickets are usually limited to a few per night.
Is it similar to the performances-labyrinths by Vargas/Dignità Autonome di Prostituzione/Teatro del Lemming/Promenade performances/Fura dels Baus/Single-spectator performances?
No. But these are all beautiful, different experiences!
Can I collaborate with you?
Pourquoi pas? Write us an e-mail or drop us a DM: our contacts are at the bottom of this page
Partners
Publications
“Immersive experiences. Creation and fruition” is the first Italian book that introduces a reflection on the most significant trend for contemporary performing art. A text that deals with crucial issues on immersivity with specific references, without hiding itself behind easy and a la mode words. A contribution made by four pens: Riccardo Brunetti, Michele Cavallo, Francesca Elifani e Roberta Ortolano - different but complementary, they face the question in technical, theoretical, historical, aesthetical, experiential method. A text that offers innumerable sparks and reflections to those who are interested in developing this artistic form, to those who are interested in contemporary time, to those who are simply curious about an artistic trend that is moving its first steps in Italy. A book written by who has a direct expertise, not only a theoretical knowledge, in immersive experience creation and fruition.
Publisher: LaRocca
Date of Publication: 2017
Genre: ARTS
Pages: 115
Editor: Brunetti R.
ISBN-10: 8894283100
ISBN-13: 9788894283105
Language: Italian
€ 16,90
Brunetti, R., Ferrante, S., Avella, A.M., Indraccolo, A., Del Gatto, C. (in press). Turning Stories into Learning Journeys: The Principles and Methods of Immersive Education
Press reviews excerpts
“...accepting the actors glances, letting us be guided by gestures and sound suggestions, feeling drumming in the stomach, shivering when a monologue ends, sharing smells and tastes with the actors, touching the same objects, lightly touching them”
“...we are facing a revolutionary step forward, that potentially could awaken the entire community”
“...it is possible to grab every detail and the protagonists can hold your hand, invite and gently immerse the presents”
“The feeling is unutterable. Time stops. [...] perhaps because like in vintage old movies, each detail is magnified”
“To be there - because to watch would be reducing the experience - is absolutely worthwhile”
“it surprises even before starting [...] a nearly endless sense-generating matrix”
romanotizie.it
“Even the most skeptical spectator would find a good reason to stay more than two hours in this kind of magical and interactive amusement park.”
“What would happen if the spectator is called, pushed, or better, immersed directly in the show?”
“The only immersive theatre proposal currently available in Italy.”
“An original and stunning sensorial path. [...] A performance that is the expression of a harmonic team work, of great expertise and an artistic quality that we can appreciate more and more rarely.”
“ [...] it makes the spectator face controversial emotions, struggling with oneself between the possibility to be active or to be passive. Immersed in a forbidden Rome [...] it transforms the look of the spectator into a movie camera, and allows to build close-ups, long shots, tracking shots, overviews, point-of-view shots and sequence shots.”
“An experience to do, to live, to immerse yourself, as it would entering in a different fantasy world but that it has great similarities with reality.”
“Playing with the actors, dressing up the scene on the uniqueness of a specific location, suggesting the possibility that interacting with the show could change the course of the events (they are still mainly predetermined by a very precise and clear direction), making the mechanism of editing and building the plot a personal matter.”
“It is a dynamic and complex dramaturgical structure, that demands to the actors a great rigor and perfectly timed junctions.”
“The global scenic system - it must be defined like this, to involve every part of the mechanism- is the outcome of careful decisions. [...] The scenic set-up deserves a praise, as does the perfect timing [...] it is the result of a high-quality work”
“A dark and fascinating world to let yourself go and pick your personal forbidden flower of the night.”
“Not all the participants are on the same level. To two brave spectators per night, it is allowed to become more active in the plot mechanism. [...] Someone gets a rose, a walnut, is invited to take some drugs.”
"[...] This show is an uninterrupted surprise: it starts with exploring the set-up, objects, details, and it ends with ransacking in the corners of our own Ego, where personal impulses and desires are locked up in the drawers."
"Also this time Project xx1 scores a direct hit, even if the target is moved. The actress is convincing and involving. The individual is included in the collective in the right way; the single person is integrated in the group and within a perfectly functioning set-up actually used by everyone."
Flaminio Boni - Un posto in prima fila
"[...] a total and compelling immersive theatre experience that turns into cinema. [...] The text is written with a excellent noir skill, technically very difficult and yet wisely built. [...] The directing is precise, attentive, and accurate but also warm, passionate, and visionary."
Flaminio Boni - Un posto in prima fila
"The perfect synchronicity of the cast never breaks the atmosphere, not a single crack in the game or a glimmer of the outside world. [...] it eludes categories and embodies the most integral definition of immersive. Performers’ acting, at just a few centimeters from their audience, literally and metaphorically on the same level, assumes an extreme realism and a cinematographic angle. The script moves in a masterful and undetectable way also in the dialogues with the public, it swiftly quotes Romanzo Criminale (Criminal Novel) and Trainspotting, giving names to identify roles rather than characters."
5 Features
I Space
In an immersive experience the performing space is blended with the audience space. While reducing considerably the distances, this fact entails that the audience is literally surrounded by the scene, developed at 360°, without any predefined points of view. Metaphorically, the spectator can hardly expect from which side a meaningful event would come - putting him in an engaging state quite different from the one generated in a theatre seat. The same considerations are applied to the experiences developed in virtual spaces: an internet search or a phone call can yield similar results.
II Senses
Immersive experiences involve as many senses as possible: the atmospheres and narratives are created to stimulate sight, hearing, sense of smell, touch, kinaesthesia (sense of own movement), taste, temperature perception, and so on. All of these aspects contribute to create an experience as much real and all-encompassing as possible.
III Gameplay
In immersive experiences, the possibility to interact is an essential tool to tell a story or create a specific atmosphere. Audience participation will be always offered and never forced - those who desire to be simply witnesses of what is happening are often free to do it. But immersive experiences release all their potential for those who desire to be involved, those who want to play along: the audience has the opportunity of playing a specific narrative role, being a character fully immersed in a story.
IV Transmedia
Immersive experiences spread out on several communication media. Each medium is fitting to develop a story or an atmosphere, no holds barred: internet websites; social media profiles; phone contacts; apparently accidental meetings; written texts on documents, letters, and diaries; graphical images or photos; live performance; dioramas; comics; e-mails and instant messaging exchanges, and so on. You can find a definition HERE.
V Reality and fiction
Immersive experiences are created taking into consideration mainly the audience experience. Experience that, in immersivity, is not vicarious: the spectators are singled out, in first person, fostering even more the feeling that what is happening is actually real.
