Solwata review: an immersive journey into rising seas (Venice Immersive)

There are three layers of reality in this elegantly crafted climate-change-themed documentary, which is narrated by actor Mark Ruffalo and unpacks the stories of Solomon Islands citizens adversely affected by rising sea levels. It’s a mixed-reality experience, deploying model-like visions of beautiful landscapes and filling the room with virtual water, which rises throughout the experience, eventually reaching just below the participant’s neckline. There’s an interesting connection between water and the term “immersion,” much bandied around in VR and MR circles – the word originating from the Latin word “immergere,” meaning to plunge, dip, or submerge, here represented by a literal water line.

Solwata is also a virtual reality experience, periodically launching slabs of 360-degree video, each introduced when the participant follows a flying fish around the room. And it’s a tactile experience, the iteration I attended at Venice Immersive including a wooden trough filled with water, positioned in the centre of the room, containing objects we’re encouraged to retrieve at various points – including a conch shell and a small model of a boat.

Directors: Felix Gaedtke, Gayatri Parameswaran
Narrator and executive producer: Mark Ruffalo
Running time: 25 minutes
Experienced on: Meta Quest 3

That third layer imbues Solwata with tactile elements, which work well in art installation spaces but are inessential: the bones of this experience would work just as well without them. In fact, I hope a version of the production becomes available to consumers and distributed through regular channels – i.e. the Meta Quest store – given that so many experiences become, outside art-installation circuits, ephemeral works inaccessible beyond a limited exhibition pool (which is a nicer way of saying “dead media”). The cabinet also triggers a distracting red outline when we approach it, necessarily indicating the object’s location but discouraging me from sticking my head into those gorgeous diorama-like models.

One of the lovely, paradoxical qualities of the virtual and mixed reality mediums is their ability to conjure antithetical visual perspectives. Diorama-like displays create the sensation of observing worlds from an omnipotent point of view, while 360 videos captured in close proximity to subjects famously offer new kinds of intimacy and presence, here bringing us into the space of the Walande, Ngongosila and Kwai people and their beautiful surroundings.

The initial “wow” factor can dissipate when the participant realises they cannot interact or engage with the world they’ve inhabited, though this never becomes an issue in Solwata. Those video sequences don’t play out for too long, augmenting an experience that feels well-balanced and paced.

The reality of rising sea levels – which often affect the communities, like those depicted here, that contributed least to the problem of global warming – is hugely important. But the creators don’t clobber you over the head with it: this is an experience that has a gentle ebb and flow, encouraging compassion and contemplation.