“In bone“The husband corrects me, thumbing my ear. “Continues bone. It is one bone conduction headphones.” He places a thin black frame along the back of my neck, with a small transducer resting on either cheekbone. The transmitter will transmit sound through my bones and into my cochlea, bypassing the eardrum and making standard headphones completely unnecessary. What is the thought behind this?
“Well, there are sounds around you in the room, so you should hear them too,” says the man. “Or maybe you’ll have to scratch your ear. You don’t have a pacemaker, do you? Or some titanium in your head?”
of Immersive Vikings exhibition at Canada Water is the latest interactive show to open in a large barn in an inhospitable part of London. From somewhere inside the building there is a deep bellow, tickling my jaw through the headphones. It can also be heard in the restroom and gift shop. However, in general, the play abandons the image of the “marauding hordes” of this legendary people. Instead, we follow the story of Kraka, daughter of Brunehilde and wife of King Ragnar Lothbrok, who conquered Paris in 845. In legend, Kraka lived in disguise as a peasant until she won King Ragnar’s hand by cleverly solving his impossible riddle, and as queen, her husband’s prophetic visions invaded her vision. You can ask the wise queen questions via interactive screens on the wall – although at 10.30am on opening day there are some technical hiccups, which is to be expected, and the Kraka I speak to is silent, her eyes sliding from side to side.
But first, in the “life-size forest”, a large green space at the beginning of the show, adorned with real trees. In between are two dozen tree trunks, each covered in an individual faux fur diaper and a VR headset, with its own standard headset attached. I sit under the Tree of Knowledge, eager to hear the story of Kraka, audioguide around my neck, bone trackers in my jaws, my standard headphones in my ears, VR headset on my face, and my cell phone in my hand to write my notes.
Inside my headset, facing me in virtual reality, is someone named Sigmund the Dragon Slayer, and next to him, a man is whipped into a tree. I find that my tree trunk will spin 360, so I spin on my heels to see the whole forest. I’m recovering from a heavy night on Monday and the effect is intense: more so when the scene changes to an aerial view of a burning castle. Then I’m in a boat with the King of the Norsemen. I turn my trunk again and see, directly behind me and close enough to touch, a Norwegian sailor, shaven-headed and fishy, strangely damaged, his mouth muttering and his legs restless. The visions fade and the headphone portion of the show is now over.
Immersive Vikings it’s mostly a show of exciting, moving images delivered with the latest technology, a new experience for someone like me who’s used to learning about Vikings through animatronic figures stirring the fiberglass stew in a bowl. There are some old-fashioned 3D artifacts on the stands, like a collection of Viking knots and some information about the goddess Frigg. And there’s that noise again, which seems to be coming from behind the double doors.
The action takes place on the walls of a great room this time, as you sit together on another Viking ship; a soundtrack of excellent Celtic playing that sounds a little too modern for the Vikings, who were likely to have reached only limited scales on their pipes and horns. Then King Ragnor is gone and Kraka is leading an army (hence the noise). It is debatable whether she ever did this in real life. Heavy metal chords play and runes fall from the sky. At the end of the play, her son, Ivar the Boneless, leads an army in Britain. At this point I have to scratch my ear – and it’s true, it’s very easy to do.
I’m not sure I learned anything new about Vikings in Canadian waters, although the other six people in the longboat with me enjoyed filming the wall projections on their phones. I left the store and my bone conductors were vibrating at the door to alert the staff that someone might try to steal them. From deep inside the building, I could hear the Kraka wedding starting again.
(Further reading: Kazuo Ishiguro’s Adaptation Perils)
