By Gerry Barker
Photos/Video by Gerry Barker
“Genius” is a word that in today’s world is often overused or misapplied. But no one can question its use for one of history’s greatest achievers: Leonardo Da Vinci.
The High Renaissance polymath, born in 1452, who gave the world the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, pushed the boundaries of art and science through his limitless curiosity, a visionary whose inventions were hundreds of years ahead of his time.
While countless papers and books have been written about his achievements, the man and his life have been captured in a new, multi-media, immersive art experience in “Da Vinci: Genius.” After its launch in Berlin in 2022, and a stop in Amsterdam the following year, it is making its U.S. debut at the PBS South Florida studios in Boynton Beach, FL., starting Nov. 2, 2024 and running through April, 2025.
At a preview party, where Boynton Beach’s mayor officiated at a ribbon cutting ceremony, media and invited guests got a sneak peek at the 45-minute show, along with a workshop featuring hands-on opportunities that combine education, learning and fun.
Led by guides wearing berets, along with ladies in Renaissance fashions, we entered a darkened room with a large cube in the center. Images of Da Vinci’s art masterpieces, along with his drawings, flowed in a 360-degree environment accompanied by narration and music. At various points, touching a wall created a swirl of cascading colors, or pressing a white bar opened up a description of what was being depicted.
As you might expect, it took a team of artists, designers, technicians and innovators to bring “Da Vinci: Genius” to life. The key players are Phoenix Immersive, backed by Scott Rudmann’s Nectar Capital, design studio flora&faunavisions and its creative director, Leigh Sachwitz, composer and curator, Sasha, and executive producer Bert van der Ryd, co-founder and managing partner for Phoenix Immersive.
South Florida PBS Senior VP of Content and Station Manager, Joyce Belloise, said their CEO and president, Dolores Fernandez Alonso, saw immersive art experiences as a growing trend, “aligning with our mission to provide lifelong learning and experiential learning opportunities for our community.”
Staffers saw the exhibit in Amsterdam and met with Phoenix Immersive to discuss the logistics of bringing the show to South Florida. The station “decided to enhance the educational element further by creating an original post-show experience” where visitors can “step into Da Vinci’s workshop and participate in hands-on activities, create art inspired by Da Vinci’s geometric designs, sketch their own inventions like those found in Da Vinci’s notebooks, and even collaborate to produce polyphonic music, which became popular during that time.”
Among the creative team there for the event were van der Ryd, Sasha and Ms. Sachwitz. Van der Ryd praised South Florida PBS for their “innovation and courage” in bringing the show here, which involved adjusting the environment in a space that’s half of what they had to work with in Berlin. He said “it takes a lot of complexity” for the media servers and scanners to process the content based on the number of guests interacting with it at any one time. At the PBS studios, ticket holders will enter at an assigned time in groups of 50.
“The young generations don’t go to museums,” said van der Ryd, who sees immersive experiences as a way to engage youth in culture and history. “You create interest and maybe they will go to a museum or read a book,” he added.
Noting the technology used to create “Da Vinci” over two years ago has been rapidly advancing, van der Ryd said in the next 10 years, new immersive applications paired with AI will emerge in ways that even Da Vinci could hardly imagine.
Ms. Belloise summed it up: “The immersive era is upon us, and it promises to be a journey of discovery and wonder.”
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