His creation unfolds entirely in virtual reality. Wearing a VR headset, visitors enter Van der Aa’s story one by one. It is up to you to find your own way, guided through this digital world by the avatars of the singers from the vocal ensemble Sjaella.
From Dust sounds like a chapter from the pen of science-fiction writers Philip K. Dick or Neal Stephenson, or like an idea lifted from Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse think tank. Yet Van der Aa’s most important reference does not lie in the futuristic realm. Instead, he sees a strong connection with The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa.
“In it, the author writes about how wonderful it is to sit by a window and watch the world go by. I think that’s something we constantly do today as well. Only our window no longer looks out onto the outside world, but onto a kind of second reality on our screens. To me, that is a distorted window. By working in VR, I deliberately take that sense of safety away. The distance disappears. You are standing among the singers. Six pairs of eyes – even if they are digital ones – staring straight at you has something deeply theatrical and intimate about it.”
Humanity at the centre
Working in VR allows Van der Aa to create experiences that would never be possible in the physical world. He calls this “unreality”. Imitating an existing reality holds little interest for him; instead, he is keen to fully exploit the potential of these new technologies.
The fact that visitors have a degree of control over the course of the story, and over their own position within it, is another major advantage. “That fascinates me enormously,” the composer explains. “I have written the overall musical arc and the main paths are fixed, but you have to physically walk that route yourself. The mere fact that you have to move changes the way you inhabit that world. I turn the listener into the protagonist of the work, which allows you to tell a completely different kind of story. I have nothing against the ritual of opera, but here the perspective shifts with every pair of ears that listens. The human being is placed firmly at the centre.”
This approach is characteristic of Van der Aa. Since the early days of his career, he has placed human performers in a field of tension with electronic elements, always searching for humanism in our relationship with technology. He is never overtly utopian or dystopian, but uses high-tech tools precisely to tell deeply personal stories.
That said, Van der Aa is not blind to the major issues surrounding such groundbreaking technologies. “Record labels signing contracts with AI artists, or applications like ChatGPT being trained on artists’ work – we need to remain very critical of that. It’s true that these companies and technologies are not exactly making the world a nicer place at the moment, but along the way I still meet enough people who continue to give me hope.”
5 → 19 Mar.’26 - VR Installation: From Dust - Michel van der Aa
