Virtual reality is often discussed through headsets, hardware specifications and gaming. But for a growing community of artists, its most compelling possibilities lie elsewhere: in the ability to turn the human body, emotions and physical presence into elements of a story.

That idea is at the centre of Embodied Realms, an immersive arts festival taking place from October 12 to 18, 2026, at Stary Browar in Poznań, Poland. Now in its third edition, the festival brings together VR experiences, participatory performances, workshops and industry discussions focused on the intersection of art and extended reality (XR). The event is organised by the Virtual Horizons Foundation.

Unlike technology exhibitions built around product demonstrations, Embodied Realms approaches immersive technology as an artistic medium. Its programme explores how audiences can experience memory, anxiety, nature and personal identity from inside digitally constructed worlds, rather than observing them from a distance.

Six VR works explore the limits of perspective

The festival's main exhibition features six VR experiences that approach storytelling through different emotional and sensory perspectives.

In A Long Goodbye, directed by Kate Voet and Victor Maes, audiences enter the world of Ida, a 72-year-old pianist living with dementia. By interacting with objects and recordings in her home, visitors uncover memories and fragments of a relationship affected by the disease.

Mirage, created by Naima Karim and Aleena Hanif, explores depression and anxiety through a stylised desert environment. Hand tracking, spatial audio and a haptic vest give participants ways to respond to the protagonist's experiences.

Other works expand the possibilities of immersive storytelling. Sense of Nowhere, directed by Hsin-Hsuan Yeh, explores the fragmented nature of attention and thought. Origen, by Emilia Sánchez Chiquetti, takes a poetic approach to interactive VR. The Eye and I, created by Jean-Michel Jarre and Hsin-Chien Huang, examines surveillance through an audiovisual journey into a virtual panopticon. Poland's Trumna VR, directed by Patryk Lichota, takes the form of an immersive audio experience set inside a coffin.

Together, these projects demonstrate that VR can accommodate very different artistic languages, from animation and sound design to embodied interaction and experimental documentary.

When the audience becomes part of the performance

Embodied Realms also presents three participatory works that blur the boundaries between performer, audience and digital environment.

Collective Body, directed by Sarah Silverblatt-Buser, is a multiplayer interactive VR experience. Replica, by Kerryn Wise and Ben Neal, combines mixed reality with live dance. Proxemix, conceived by Patryk Lichota, connects motion capture with visuals and sound generated in real time.

These works raise a central question for immersive creators: what happens when an audience member's movement or presence becomes part of the artwork itself?

Rather than treating interaction as an additional feature, the performances make participation fundamental to the experience.

Beyond the exhibition

The festival's programme also includes an industry conference on October 16–17, covering XR production, financing, distribution, cultural memory and education. A project showcase gives selected creators opportunities to present work in development and receive feedback from industry professionals. Workshops introduce tools such as TouchDesigner for creating audiovisual experiences that respond to movement and presence.

For independent creators, this combination of exhibition, education and professional exchange is significant. Immersive art requires more than technical expertise: it also demands new approaches to directing, sound, choreography, interaction and audience experience.

Embodied Realms offers a meeting point for those disciplines.

Its broader message is that the future of VR storytelling will not be defined solely by increasingly realistic graphics. It will also depend on how artists use immersive technology to change our relationship with stories, other people and our own bodies.

In Embodied Realms, the audience is no longer simply watching the artwork. Its presence becomes part of what the artwork is.