We left Casa Batlló, and very well. I insist: very well, both the proposal to follow the tour with a digital tablet (which shows what each corner was like more than a century ago) and access to the upper balcony (with photo included) and, very especially, the commitment to the labor integration of people with autism (or neurodivergent) with an unashamed and very visible naturalness. What a few years ago was a half-hour visit to revisit grandma's relic, now are two hours well invested in knowledge, sensitivity, play, and history. An absolute yes to the Gaudí Dôme, yes to the digital guides, and yes to access to the patio and especially to the terrace. Bravo. Another thing is to try to enter Gaudí's brain, through an immersive room located in the basement, called Gaudí Cube and the work of artist Refik Anadol. I think it's one of those situations of playing seven and a half and, having a seven, asking for a card: it's not necessary. It's not necessary, I mean. It doesn't need to be so similar to any other in any other place in the world. I immediately thought that the warning, in fact, is for the entire city.
Evidently, the best 3D, or rather 4D, immersive, enveloping, tactile, interactive, and mega dolby surround experience in the entire Casa Batlló is to have a cacaolat at the tables on the upper terrace, where they have had the detail of putting a bar. It goes without saying that reality, or rather access to a reality that we did not know or to which we do not have as much access as it would seem, is the best product that a modernist city like this can offer. And I loved that the upper floors of the house were scented with the smell of clean clothes (here the service ironed and washed, under white Teresian hyperboles), and that almost all the investment in technology seems really well spent to me. The problem is excess, when the line is crossed, when it no longer adds anything new. I don't know if I want to enter Gaudí's brain. Not like this, in any case. They managed to enter Dalí's brain, with a spectacular result, the people from Ideal a few months ago: absolutely moving. They found their thing in 4D Mainat and Cruz with the Gaudí Experience near Park Güell, which has meaning and narrative, and the Barça museum was also a pioneer in these technologies to the point that soon we will be able to enter (virtually) the changing room with Pedri or Putellas. Also an important center for immersive arts is planned at the Teatre Principal and, apparently, the Palau de la Música is delicately studying how to bring its visits closer to this world of virtuality. Let them study it well, let them think it through. All of them are heritage actors who have a seven. A consolidated seven. Be careful about asking for more.
What am I saying? Am I saying that virtual reality cannot compete with real reality? No, we already know this: I am saying that, when you bet on immersive technologies, try to guarantee the solidity of the intervention. Its meaning. If these buildings are lasting works, and the digital complement of the moment will always necessarily be more ephemeral, this should not mean that it should be trivial. Something free, a complete file. They tell us that we must go digital. Well, you know what? Some trencadissos here, some stained glass there, a superimposed plan, a lot of psychotropic music from all the time machines, and, above all, that the children freak out. No, please. Not even children swallow certain nth magical journeys through space-time or inside the neurons or neuroses of our geniuses. There are projections or immersions that are not forgotten after two minutes, but simultaneously with their observation: while you live the supposed great experience, you automatically forget it because it simply isn't telling you anything. In fact, you haven't had the experience. You have continued breathing, though.
Learn from those who know, learn from the imagineers: no hay nada gratuito en las atracciones digitales de los parques de Disney, ni un solo fotograma que sobre, ni el menor riesgo de aburrir por repetición. There is nothing gratuitous in Disney parks' digital attractions, not a single superfluous frame, not the slightest risk of boredom by repetition.Estamos en Barcelona, We are in Barcelona, no juguemos con esto porque con las cosas de comer no se juega.let's not play with this because you don't play with food. We cannot be so short of imagination, or at least we cannot do it in the name of Gaudí or Barça or the Moreneta Experience. Listen to the artists here and not the ten-euro paellas, to the scriptwriters here and not the verywonderfuls from China, and don't worry, they will end up understanding each other with the martians of the little screens. Don't make us ashamed, please, I ask you, I feel very strongly that we are walking dangerously on the precipice. Oh, and don't get a millimeter close to the Sagrada Familia. Not until you have all this in mind. But not even a millimeter, neither the immersive glasses nor the tactile devices, nor the edible holograms. First, practice with the Superilla Non-smoke Immersive Lab or with the Espanyol 5D Challenge. And then, if God forgives you, let's talk.