Curiositas’ Virtual Reality experience Cosmorama: The Great Virtual Show was showcased at the Artistic Research Exhibition (ARE Sofia) in Bulgaria, from June 2-6, 2025. This exhibition, now in its second iteration, took place alongside the WIRE Summit and was a significant opportunity to share outcomes of artistic research from FilmEU and beyond. The participating works were selected through an open international call.

Curiositas’ participation served as a testing ground for the main exhibition The Cosmorama in Lisbon. Virtual Travelling in the 19th-Century, which opened later that same month at the Portuguese Cinematheque in Lisbon. 

The promise of a virtual journey has always been implicit in the narratives of cosmoramas. The Virtual Reality experience Cosmorama. The Great Virtual Show evokes that long-standing aspiration, while also enabling the recreation of one of the most renowned cosmoramas in Lisbon: the Grand Optical Gallery by the Austrian Thomas Karl Andorfer. 

Despite not presented in the modelled space for which the experience was originally designed, in Sofia the VR piece generated excellent audience feedback. Viewers particularly highlighted the effective use of VR for the remediation of this often-forgotten medium.

Alongside the Virtual Reality experience, a making-of video detailing the project’s development was also presented. 

More information about the Virtual Reality experience is available here.