#1788: Curatorial Overview of Venice Immersive 2026 & Celebrating 10 Years of Immersive Storytelling

The 2026 edition of Venice Immersive marks their 10-year anniversary, and I interviewed the co-curators Liz Rosenthal and Michel Reilhac about this year's selection that includes 30 projects in competition, 9 Best of selections, 3 Biennale College Cinema – Immersive projects, 26 VRChat worlds, as well as a special immersive event.

Rosenthal and Reilhac talk about how the structures and forms of immersive storytelling have really matured, and how they're still really novel and compelling ways that artists are using XR and the affordances of immersive design to tell really compelling stories. The diversity and comprehensive scope of the selection each year reflects a vibrant creative exploration that is being grounded into more and more viable revenue streams through "location-based entertainment" or LBE. Be sure to check out the 121-page IDFA DocLab Immersive Think Tank Report 2026 that I wrote for more details on this emerging indie XR distribution ecosystem.

Rosenthal and Reilhac talk about the latest trends of immersive storytelling, but also what keeps them coming back to this emerging medium. To me, it's one of the most vital and interesting aspects of the XR industry, and it is also where I'm seeing some of the most intersting innovations for the medium. I've now published 692 episodes on Immersive Storytelling on the Voices of VR podcast since 2014 with many more unpublished in my backlog yet to come. This accounts for over a third of all my coverage as it's a really great testing ground for really understanding the affordances of the medium as it is used to tell so many different types of stories across many contexts, and using many different combinations of disciplines. Check out my previous episode #1787 for some of my philosophical musings on "Blending the Elements of Experiential Design."I'll be attending this year's edition of Venice Immersive to both see the program and to interview as many of the featured creators as I can, and last year I topped more than 30 hours conducted onsite. I will update this post here once I post all of my coverage from Venice Immersive 2026.

Selected Projects that You Can Watch at Home Right Now

If you won't be able to make it Venice Immersive, then there are a number of Best of Selections that are available on the Oculus store, that are very much worth checking out.

Spymaster

Crafting Crimes: The Mona Lisa Heist

Hotel Infinity

The Amusement

Little Nightmares VR: Altered Echoes

All but one of the 26 VRC