Stefano Fake is a pioneer and one of the main creators of the immersive digital art experiences, those audiovisual installations that aim to immerse the viewer inside the work of art itself, through audiovisual digital technologies and monumental video projections.
The Immersive art experiences created by STEFANO FAKE & THE FAKE FACTORY helped define the format, the language and the global success of the immersive digital art exhibitions, thanks to an unprecedented media exposure and a series of attendance records in Italian and international museums. (+ 7 millions visitors in 2012-2025). Many of The Fake Factory’s installations have become milestones of contemporary immersive digital art.
In 2001 Stefano Fake was also the first artist to use video projections inside a mirror room, creating a unique and extraordinary mixed-media installation, which today has become one of the most iconic and widespread installation of immersive art in many international exhibitions. (https://immersivemirrorroom.art/)
An immersive art experience can be technically described as “a form of art which uses multimedia and sensory tools with the aim of immersing the viewer inside the artwork itself, which has a development in space and time determined by audio-visual storytelling.”
AN IMMERSIVE MULTIMEDIA ART EXPERIENCE IS INTERDISCIPLINARY BY ITS VERY NATURE.
ITS MAIN FEATURE IS THE EXPERIMENTAL USE OF CUTTING-EDGE TECHNOLOGY AS AN ARTISTIC TOOL WITH THE PURPOSE OF CREATING TRANSFORMATIVE SPATIAL EXPERIENCE. THE CREATIVE TOOLS IN THE HANDS OF THE DIGITAL ARTIST ARE: THE SPACE, THE LIGHT, THE VISUAL DRAMATURGY, THE SOUNDTRACK, THE AUDIENCE. EACH OF THESE ELEMENTS IS FUNDAMENTAL AND MUST HAVE THE SAME BALANCE IN THE CREATION PROCESS.
THE CREATION OF AN IMMERSIVE ART EXPERIENCE IS AN INTERDISCIPLINARY PROCESS. WE NEED TO MIX TOGETHER OTHER DISCIPLINES SUCH AS CINEMA, FINE ART, SCULPTURE, GRAPHIC DESIGN, ARCHITECTURE, SOUND DESIGN, MUSIC, LIGHT ART, LITERATURE.
Stefano Fake himself describes immersive art in this way:
“From Andy Warhol’s point of view, Pop Art mostly meant “loving things”.
To reuse his words, I would love to describe Immersive Art as “loving people” since in the installations of immersive arts there’s always a very important and fundamental emotional relation between the artist and the audience. The fact itself of calling those exhibitions “Experiences” makes us better understand the paradigm shift. So, the audiovisual’s quality or the purely technological aspect fade in to the background. Before everything else, we put the experience of the audience and them being immersed in the light inside spaces, that thanks to a poetic use of technologies, the art enhancing the audiences senses. It’s not about surrounding the audience with big images, but it’s about taking it inside an audiovisual flow, modeling the shape of sensorial sensations. This is summarizing the distinctive aspect of the Immersive Art that we realized in the course of the last years. (Stefano Fake, 2020)”
Stefano Fake is a new media artist and director born in Italy in 1971. Currently he lives and works in Florence and Milan. Within his studio – THE FAKE FACTORY – he has designed, directed and created some of the most significative immersive multimedia art experiences exhibited in prestigious museums and art galleries worldwide, with over five million visitors in less than ten years.
TO BE A MEDIA ARTIST IS NOT A MATTER OF MAKING VIDEOS OR MULTIMEDIA ARTWORKS AT ALL. WHAT WE ARE REALLY DEALING WITH IS THE VISITORS STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE SHAPE OF THEIR PERCEPTIONS. (STEFANO FAKE, 2015)
Stefano Fake is a new media artist and director born in Italy in 1971. Currently he lives and works in Florence and Milan. Within his studio – THE FAKE FACTORY – he has designed, directed and created some of the most significative immersive multimedia art experiences exhibited in prestigious museums and art galleries worldwide, with over five million visitors.
STEFANO FAKE & THE FAKE FACTORY : IMMERSIVE ART EXPERIENCES (2001-today)
Stefano Fake is an Italian artist and video designer who creates installations using video projections, films, photographs, sculptures, computer graphics and interactive technologies. He is a pioneer and one of the main interpreters of the immersive digital art experience, a new form of artistic expression that consists of the use of audiovisual installations that aim to immerse the spectator in the work itself, through the use of digital technologies and monumental video projections.
The italian multidisciplinary artist Stefano Fake works in immersive art installations since 2001. The digital and multimedia artworks he created with his laboratory THE FAKE FACTORY, have been exhibited in the most innovative and creative festivals and events worldwide. Immersive art comes from a long tradition that we can trace back to the historical Italian avant-garde of the twentieth century, such us the ITALIAN FUTURISM and LUCIO FONTANA SPATIALISM. Stefano Fake added the use of digital technology to the concept of those avant-garde artists of the XX Century, soon becoming one of the most representative artists of this kind of IMMERSIVE ART EXPERIENCES on a global scale.
THE FAKE FACTORY has explored the computer’s potential to create both virtual and physical art forms that embrace the concepts of space, time, presence and perception.
Through the use of immersion and digital manipulation of both virtual and physical space, The Fake Factory has created powerful aesthetic environments that enable audiences to experience alternative realities. Immersive installations satisfy the viewer’s inherent desire to escape physical reality and become part of the art experience itself.
While the visitor moves in the space, the projections surround him everywhere, confusing the boundaries of the walls with those of ceiling and floor. The inner world is expanding to the outside. A lifelong flow of constantly changing images wraps the spectator.
In 2001 he founded The Fake Factory, a studio specialized in Immersive Art, Projection Art and Videomapping. In just a few years, this laboratory becomes a point of reference in the context of digital and immersive art at a national and international level, participating in the creation of numerous projects: immersive exhibitions, video mapping, architectural light installations, video production, video scenography for theatres, fashion, visual environments for museums, galleries and cultural events, production of multi-sensory works, video installations, video art works.
“VIDEO IS NOT ONLY SOMETHING WE WATCH, IT’S SOMETHING WE EXPERIENCE”
(STEFANO FAKE)
Since 2012 he has been creating Immersive Art Exhibitions, reinterpreting the works of artists of the past with digital technologies and a contemporary language. His works defined the format internationally, thanks to an unprecedented success with audiences and critics (+ 5 million visitors overall in the period 2012-2024).
“TO BE A MEDIA ARTIST IS NOT A MATTER OF MAKING VIDEOS OR MULTIMEDIA ARTWORKS AT ALL. WHAT WE ARE REALLY DEALING WITH IS THE VISITORS STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE SHAPE OF THEIR PERCEPTIONS.”
(STEFANO FAKE)
The Immersive art experiences created by STEFANO FAKE & THE FAKE FACTORY helped define the format, the language and the global success of the immersive digital art exhibitions, thanks to an unprecedented media exposure and a series of attendance records in Italian and international museums. (+ 5 millions visitors in 2012-2023). Many of The Fake Factory’s installations have become milestones of contemporary immersive digital art.
“An immersive art experience can be technically described as “a form of art which uses multimedia and sensory tools with the aim of immersing the viewer inside the artwork itself, which has a development in space and time determined by audio-visual storytelling.” (Stefano Fake, 2012) – In 2001 Stefano Fake was also the first artist to use video projections inside a mirror room, creating a unique and extraordinary mixed-media installation, which today has become one of the most iconic and widespread works of immersive art in many international exhibitions.
Links:
Video is not only something we watch,
STEFANO FAKE
it’s something we experience.
stefanofake.com
thefakefactory.com
immersivemirrorroom.com
IMMERSIVE ART EXPERIENCE 