Black Mirror Experience Brings VR, AI, and Physical Sets to The Shed
A fictional tech showroom, a humanoid robot, and a room full of biometric data will greet visitors when The Black Mirror Experience opens at The Shed in New York on June 20. The limited run, scheduled through September, marks the work’s U.S. debut and extends a project that has already traveled from Cannes to Montreal.
The immersive piece combines virtual reality with built environments, placing up to six participants inside a deteriorating storyline shaped by artificial intelligence and digital self-creation. Before entering, visitors build a personal avatar by giving the system their face and voice data. From there, the narrative unfolds inside Phaethon, a technology corporation named after the Greek sun god, as it prepares to launch LifeAgent, a humanoid robot designed to learn about users and anticipate their needs.
The project was developed by Paris-based Banijay Live Studio in partnership with Univrse. According to the organizers, the aim was to fuse the sensory pull of virtual reality with the physical presence of a real space, creating an experience that feels both immediate and unstable. David Bardos, a co-founder of Univrse, said the team was drawn to “the tension between the familiar and the uncanny,” adding that the work was built to live inside that feeling.
The experience debuted in May at the Cannes Film Festival’s immersive competition, where it received the Special Jury Prize in the category for virtual reality, augmented reality, and other spatial storytelling works. It later opened at Montreal’s Infinity Experience space, and its New York presentation will run concurrently with a showing at Espacio Delicias in Madrid.
The Shed, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and located in Hudson Yards, has become one of New York’s most visible venues for large-scale immersive work. It has previously hosted a mixed-reality concert experience featuring Ryuichi Sakamoto, Viola’s Room by Punchdrunk, and An Ark, described as the first play created for mixed reality.
Alex Poots, the Shed’s artistic director, said the institution’s U.S. premiere of the work will bring audiences closer to the drama in “innovative and intimate ways.” For a story so closely tied to surveillance, privacy, and technological dependence, the setting may be as important as the script.
