Starry, starry sight: Walking through the Van Gogh 360 in Bengaluru

Walking through the Van Gogh Live Experience in Bengaluru

It is a lovely morning and since it is early on a weekday, there are just a handful of people milling about the mall and almost all of them are making their way to the Van Gogh 360o Live Experience. The makeshift box office and posters, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, make it seem like a day at the movies, but nothing could be further than the truth.

The first room or hall, if you would like to call it that, has a few reproductions of Van Gogh’s famous works — selfie spots so all the click-crazy people can get it out of their system while they wait for the previous batch of visitors to leave. And much like any self-respecting theatre lounge, it has a vending machine

The next enclosure has internally-lit standees that take you through the artist’s life; some of Van Gogh’s most popular paintings form the backdrop for this text. There is something to be said for viewing a work of art that is lit up from within. The incandescence combined with the enlarged size, gives you a closer view of the brushstrokes, the blend of colours and Van Gogh’s attention to detail, an appreciation that could be lost if you were viewing the same works in their actual size.

Hats off to the writer or team who put together the content — it piques your interest and sustains it without sounding like an art history textbook. It also jostles you into a place of empathy for the artist, which makes what follows even more spectacular, because the next room is where the magic unfolds.

It is dark and a lightbulb is flickering, a wisp of smoke flits across the light. Gradually, the room brightens and I see tired, expectant faces looking at me. But they are not looking at me — they are seated around a table, waiting to start their dinner after a long day in the fields. I had walked in on The Potato Eaters.

They carry on with their well-deserved meal, oblivious to all of us. But, there is no time to stand and stare. I find a spot on the floor and let the colours wash over me as one painting morphs into the next. Trees in the garden give way to fields ripe with harvest, Irises bloom, grow and fade away, labourers snooze under the midday sun as crows take flight across wheatfields and sunflowers whirl by in bursts of colour as you bask in a mantle of yellow.

All the while, there is an unobtrusive melody playing in the background. Snatches of familiar tunes blend in with the sensory delight my eyes rove on. Almond Blossoms drift past on a soft gentle breeze and as silly as it sounds, I stretch my hand out to catch one of those little white petals dancing by. It is hard to imagine the same sensations in the absence of music; the choice of classical pieces from Van Gogh’s era or thereabouts, only add to the immersive, surround sound andsight experience of wandering in time.