Songs for a Passerby
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| Songs for a Passerby | |
|---|---|
| Information | |
| VR/AR | Virtual Reality |
| Developer | Silbersee, Studio Nergens |
| Type | Experience |
| Genre | Opera |
| Play Area | Room-scale |
| Game Mode | Single-player |
| Release Date | 29 August 2023 (Venice Immersive premiere) |
| Website | https://en.studionergens.com/songs-for-a-passerby |
Songs for a Passerby is a virtual reality opera directed by the Dutch artist Celine Daemen. It was first shown in the Venice Immersive competition of the 80th Venice International Film Festival in 2023, where it won the Venice Immersive Grand Prize.[1][2] Visitors wear a VR headset and walk on their own through a dreamlike city while hearing a sung, whispered and spoken opera, and live 3D cameras let them meet a 3D reflection of themselves inside the piece.[2][3]
The work was produced by Silbersee in co-production with Daemen's Studio Nergens, VIA ZUID and Muziekgebouw Productiehuis.[2][4] It is presented as a location-based installation in which one visitor at a time books a time slot.[3][5]
Content
The festival synopsis describes the piece as "a musical dreamscape shown in a VR headset" in which the visitor follows their own 3D mirror image past scenes such as a dying horse, a choir of murmuring people and two playing dogs.[2] In an interview published by Bozar, Daemen described a dark cityscape in which a little dog leads the visitor through the street and the subway into scenes where "you listen to people's thoughts".[6] She called it "more of an explorative experience than an interactive one".[6]
The Biennale lists a running time of 25 minutes and Dutch as the language.[2] Daemen told the Voices of VR podcast that a visit lasts between 18 and 25 minutes depending on the visitor.[7] For the 2025 Brussels run, Bozar gave the duration as 25 to 30 minutes, with Dutch dialogue and English subtitles and a minimum age of 12.[5]
Development
In the Biennale's director's statement, Daemen wrote that she wanted to place spectators "outside themselves" by "showing them the contours of their own 'self' through capture with live 3D cameras", so that the visitor is "both a body that is moving through space and a mind that is looking at it".[2] In De Groene Amsterdammer she explained that she calls the piece an opera because it is built with musical dramaturgy; the article also reports that the programme booklet names Rainer Maria Rilke's Duino Elegies as an inspiration, which Daemen linked to her interest in melancholy.[8] She has said that the atmosphere of the work is influenced by Andrei Tarkovsky, and that its darkness, clouds and fog were also inspired by Chantal Akerman's Les rendez-vous d'Anna.[6] Her previous VR opera, Eurydice, a Descent into Infinity, had been selected for Venice Immersive in 2022.[9]
The team was led by Daemen with Aron Fels as VR art director, Asa Horvitz as composer and sound designer, Olivier Herter as librettist and Sjoerd van Acker as developer; Wouter Snoei handled sound and mix.[2][4] Business Doc Europe reported that the libretto is sung by twenty singers and four soloists.[10]
The people and spaces in the city were built from volumetric captures and photogrammetry; Studio Nergens credits two photogrammetry artists.[4] Daemen told Voices of VR that the team used Kinect cameras for all of its volumetric recordings, combining people recorded in the streets of Amsterdam with studio sessions, and she told Business Doc Europe that more than 500 passers-by were individually captured with volumetric video.[7][10] Podcast host Kent Bye described the piece as using redirected walking to move visitors through "impossible spaces".[7] According to De Filmkrant, the physical play area measures five by six metres, and the artifacts of the digital scans, including on the scanned dog that guides the visitor, were kept rather than polished away.[11] The production was funded by Fonds Podiumkunsten, the Netherlands Film Fund and Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie.[4]
Release
After its Venice premiere, the piece toured festivals, concert halls and museums in Europe, Asia and North America. The table lists selected presentations.
| Date | Event or venue | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 29 August - 9 September 2023 | Venice Immersive, 80th Venice International Film Festival, Lazzaretto Vecchio | International premiere in competition[12][4] |
| September 2023 | Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, Amsterdam | Dutch premiere[4][11] |
| February 2024 | Dutch National Opera and Ballet, Amsterdam | Listed by Studio Nergens[4] |
| 2024 | South by Southwest (Austin), BIFAN (Bucheon), Nowe Horyzonty (Wroclaw), Sonica (Glasgow), Netherlands Film Festival (Utrecht) | Festival presentations listed by Studio Nergens[4] |
| 23 October - 3 November 2024 | Bonnefanten, Maastricht | Museum installation; all time slots booked[3] |
| 2025 | Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (New York), De Singel (Antwerp), ILT Festival (Aarhus), Wonderland Festival (Brescia) | Presentations listed by Studio Nergens[4] |
| 18-27 June 2025 | Bozar, Brussels | Installation at Terarken[5] |
Reception
At Venice the work competed against 27 other projects. The jury of Singing Chen (president), Pedro Harres and German Heller gave it the Grand Prize; the Special Jury Prize went to Flow and the Achievement Prize to Empereur.[1][12]
Jelena Novak of Universidade Nova de Lisboa discussed the piece in a 2024 article in the journal Sound Stage Screen. She described attending it at the Dutch National Opera and Ballet in Amsterdam, where one person at a time experienced it on one of two physical "stages". She wrote that its melodious singing "is less prominent" than in Michel van der Aa's VR operas Eight and From Dust, but that "the concept of VR opera fits the piece well, as there is a deep sense of vocality woven throughout".[13]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Official awards of the 80th Venice Film Festival". La Biennale di Venezia. 2023-09-09. https://www.labiennale.org/en/news/official-awards-80th-venice-flm-festival. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 "Songs for a Passerby". La Biennale di Venezia. https://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2023/venice-immersive/songs-passerby. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Celine Daemen: Songs for a Passerby". Bonnefanten. https://www.bonnefanten.nl/en/agenda/celine-daemen-songs-for-a-passerby. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 "Songs for a Passerby". Studio Nergens. https://en.studionergens.com/songs-for-a-passerby. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "VR Installation: Songs For A Passerby - Celine Daemen". Bozar. https://www.bozar.be/en/calendar/songs-passerby-vr-celine-daemen. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Juliette Duret (2024-12-24). "Creating a VR Opera with a Little Help from Tarkovsky and Akerman". Bozar. https://www.bozar.be/en/watch-read-listen/creating-vr-opera-little-help-tarkovsky-and-akerman. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Kent Bye (2023-09-26). "Kickoff of Venice Immersive 2023 Coverage with Winner "Songs by a Passerby" and Atmospheric Storytelling". Voices of VR. https://voicesofvr.com/1272-kickoff-of-venice-immersive-2023-coverage-with-winner-songs-by-a-passerby-and-atmospheric-storytelling/. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ Thomas Heerma van Voss (2023-09-12). "Tegenover-zijn en niets dan dat". De Groene Amsterdammer. https://www.groene.nl/artikel/tegenover-zijn-en-niets-dan-dat. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ "Eurydice, een Afdaling in Oneindigheid (Eurydice, a Descent into Infinity)". La Biennale di Venezia. https://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2022/venice-immersive/eurydice-een-afdaling-oneindigheid-eurydice-descent-infinity. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Nick Cunningham (2023-09-04). "Venice Immersive: Songs for a Passerby by Celine Daemen". Business Doc Europe. https://businessdoceurope.com/venice-immersive-songs-for-a-passerby-by-celine-daemen/. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Kees Driessen (2023-09-19). "Celine Daemen over VR Songs for a Passerby". De Filmkrant. https://filmkrant.nl/interview/celine-daemen-over-vr-songs-for-a-passerby/. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Official 2023 Venice Immersive selection announced". La Biennale di Venezia. https://www.labiennale.org/en/news/official-2023-venice-immersive-selection-announced. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ Jelena Novak (2024). "From Vox Ferus to Canine Posthuman: Becoming a Singing Dog". Sound Stage Screen, vol. 4, no. 1. https://doi.org/10.54103/sss27255. Retrieved 2026-10-07.