VR Experience The Infinite Is the Closest Thing to Being an Astronaut
Space Explorers: The Infinite is on view now at Silver Street Studios in Sawyer Yards.
Image: Courtesy Alex Montoya
Houstonia’s The Must List tells you about something going on in Houston that you absolutely cannot miss.
Astronaut Christina Koch kicked me in the face.
In her defense, she didn’t know. Mainly because she wasn’t even present in my physical space, but rather a virtual reality projection from a 360° video shot aboard the International Space Station.
Space Explorers: The Infinite, currently set up at Silver Street Studios in Sawyer Yards, offers an immersive, interactive VR experience bringing earthbound humans into orbit. It originally opened in 2021 and ran for four months, then reopened this past May with additional footage, including video from NASA’s November 2022 launch of Artemis I. Collaborators Felix and Paul Studios and Phi Studio sent 360° cameras alongside ISS astronauts Victor Glover, Nick Hague, Anne McClain, Jessica Meir Andrew Morgan, Luca Parmitano, David Saint-Jacques, and the aforementioned Koch.
Virtual reality is all the rage these days.
Image: Courtesy Alex Montoya
“Back in 2018, you know, there weren’t that many people with virtual reality headsets. We imagined the possibility of doing a large-scale traveling exhibition, where we would basically welcome people in the experience to see the content and to live basically like the astronauts. So that’s how the project was imagined,” says Eric Albert, CEO of Phi Studio. “There’s roughly 250 people who have had the privilege to visit the International Space Station. With The Infinite now, we’re at roughly 500,000 people—virtually, obviously—that have visited the International Space Station.”
Visitors don VR headsets and take a 40-minute stroll through the ISS, encountering glowing “bubbles” that they can press and bear witness to snippets from the astronauts’ daily lives. There are 60 of these bubbles scattered throughout, though within the time frame participants can only access about 15 to 16. As such, every participant leaves with a different experience, and groups who arrive together are encouraged to part and share what they saw after everything wraps. Don’t worry—you won’t lose sight of your loved ones. They’re marked as gold figures on your spacewalk, while strangers appear blue and The Infinite staffers are green.
Pretend to be an astronaut in space at Space Explorers: The Infinite.
Image: Courtesy Alex Montoya
On a recent visit, my plus-one talked about watching astronauts enjoying leisure time by playing harmonica together. I witnessed a meal, a haircut, and Koch drifting off and steadying herself while studying a plant. One of the more sobering bubbles involved a discussion about how plans for the return home had to change due to COVID-19.
“What the creative team really wanted to do was to build a connection with the astronauts who are up there and share some very personal moments in the experience,” Albert says. “There’s one in particular where Anne McClain is sitting in a window and reflecting on her time up there and looking back at Earth and describing the overview effect. If you’re not familiar with the overview effect, it’s what the astronauts describe when they see Earth from space for the first time. Some people will define it as life-changing, spiritual, all sorts of ways to describe it, but always very emotional. The intention was to try to get as many people on Earth to live that feeling.”
The Infinite places visitors immediately into the scenes. No matter where you look, you’ll be just as surrounded by the ISS. It’s jarring, claustrophobic, and surreal by design, allowing the artists and their collaborators to explore the unique interplay between alienation and community that comes from long-term space travel. Even suggesting that groups split up to vary every individual’s experience ties in with this: We want to share and talk about what we just saw as soon as we see it. We want to reach out and touch the golden outlines of our companions when our journeys overlap.
Hell, we even want to wave back at the astronauts. Unlike our groupmates, they can’t see us—or, thankfully, kick us in the face—but we still feel this compulsion to respond all the same. The Infinite is no mere novelty. It’s a meditative glimpse into core social elements of humanity and connection that just happens to use VR to accomplish this.
Catch Space Explorers: The Infinite before it leaves again at the end of the summer. Tickets start at $35.
