Tribeca Immersive 2019 Diary, Part 3: Being In It and Of It

Inside the visceral, shocking World War I experience ‘War Remains’

A portal opens before me and I step through. I’m inside the Western Front of The First World War.

I take a deep breath and steel myself for what’s to come. I see fighting all around me as I enter the trench. I quickly back myself into a corner. With my back against a physical wall, this place seems the safest, for now. I’ve almost forgotten that I’m wearing a VR headset as the sound of gunfire fills my ears. I peer into a nearby periscope and see only chaos.

I clutch at the wall behind me and am startled to feel a cloth bulge. I turn to see a knapsack hanging prosaically on the wall. The ground rattles once more and all four walls around me start to shake. The podcaster Dan Carlin (Hardcore History) is in my ears, talking about how the non-stop sound of artillery during WWI drove some people mad. I can now understand why.

The vibrating stops and I feel safe for the moment. I am alone, with only the sound of Carlin’s voice to keep me company. But even he disappears at times.

And yet there’s more here to see, more to touch. Several dead rats are hung upon a line, their bodies equally spaced out, like some form of perverse laundry. Then, I realize there are severed limbs all around me. The bodies of dead men are draped across every surface. A rosary dangles in front of me, its owner no longer part of this mortal realm. Another man grasps a broken pocket watch; he’s also gone.

Dare I touch this hanging arm? These hanging rats?

Are these items virtual or real?

Then: something more ominous on the horizon. It’s one thing to know intellectually that tanks were used during the fighting in WWI. It’s another thing to see said tank roll by, destroying everything and everyone in its path. I crouch down in fear, feeling the stone barricade underneath my finger tips. Through the barbed wire, I see soldiers a few feet away. They fire at the enemy and then fall, collapsing onto the dirt, as the area around me begins to fill with yellow smoke.

My pulse is racing; my hands shake.

It’s mustard gas. Is this what terror feels like?

Panic rises within me as I realize I can no longer see the ground.

I’m blind.