White Dwarf

The  interactive Virtual and Augmented Reality Installation 
(VR & AR) returns @ Benaki Museum/ Pireos 138
Directed by Yolanda Markopoulou

23 February 2023- 28 April 2023, Friday to Sunday
 
White Dwarf, the interactive VR & AR installation which presents a piece of the story of the "birth"
of the first atomic bomb by the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer  is returning  in Athens,
at the Benaki Museum / Pireos 138  from the 23rd of February until the 28th of April 2024. 

Last December, within a limited run of presentations, in just 8 days, over 700 visitors, of all ages entered the specially designed spaced and experienced the innovative interactive performance. 

As the director Yolanda Markopoulou elaborates, the audience in order to watch  the White Dwarf enters a specially designed space, so they can fully immerse into the experience which blurs the limits between physical and virtual experience.  Even before they put on the VR headset, they are part of a scientific experience and they are called to take sides on the pressing subject of the use of nuclear energy.  

What is the White Dwarf?
  "The white dwarf is a star that has exhausted its energy and dies silently, without exploding.
What if the atomic bomb had met the same fate as a white dwarf? If, instead of wrecking havoc,
it remained silent, locked in a room, only to become an exhibit in a future museum?”


The research of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who is dubbed as the “father of the atomic bomb” meets the real story of Sadako Sasaki, a little girl, victim of the Hiroshima bombing.  The explosion of the atomic bomb resembles that of the death of a star in a supernova explosion; though, instead of restoring the cosmic equilibrium, it causes irrevocable damage on Earth.

The White Drarf was first presented in Thessaloniki, as part of the newly created section Immersive-All Around Cinema To “White Dwarf” of the 63rd Film Festival . 

The duration of the experience is 30 minutes and groups of up to 14 persons can enter it simultaneously.
 
The VR film is in english. The interactive installation is in Greek.

The interactive installation White Dwarf is presented 
during the Museum's opening hours as follows:

Friday: 17:00, 18:00, 19:00, 20:00, 21:00
Saturday: 12:00, 13:00 14:00, 15:00, 16:00, 17:00, 18:00, 19:00, 20:00, 21:00
Sunday: 12:00, 13:00,14:00, 15:00, 16:00, 17:00