Summer School 2025

Creating Space-Based Narratives is a hands-on workshop exploring how sensory storytelling, spatial design, and participatory techniques can transform museums, galleries, and public spaces into living, immersive environments. From XR and AI to scent, sound, and touch, participants will prototype experiences that deepen engagement and connection. A major emphasis will be placed on designing through all five senses. Drawing from both cultural and commercial examples, the workshop bridges theory and practice, asking: what kinds of immersion truly serve us today? This workshop is ideal for students in design, media, arts, performance, education, museum studies, or sustainability who are curious about how storytelling, space, game design, and the senses can work together to create meaningful and memorable immersive experiences. Whether working with emerging technologies or no tech at all, this is a space for experimentation, reflection, and co-creation.

Day I: Introduction to Immersive Storytelling, Past and Present
On Day I, we explore how cultures from prehistory to the present have embedded stories, symbols, and knowledge within immersive environments — from Baroque churches and Buddhist temples to ancient sites like the Chauvet Cave. We will also examine how user experience, design, and interaction shape everyday spaces such as libraries, banks, hotels, and shopping malls. Commercial immersive environments like Disney World, Las Vegas, Meow Wolf’s upcoming Omega Mart, and Felix & Paul Studios’ Interstellar Arc — a 20,000-square-foot installation opening in fall 2025 — will also be considered.
Practical exercise: Design a spatial experience based on a story theme (e.g., journey, conflict, transformation, discovery).

Day II: Designing for Agency, Multisensory Experiences, and Audience Ecosystems
On Day II, we introduce tools and technologies that enhance immersion and move from linear storytelling models to designing ecosystems that prioritize agency, choice, and participation. We will examine how multimedia narratives differ from multisensory approaches, focusing on how to build experiences where the audience becomes the protagonist and the story acts as a catalyst for transformation. Through collaborative exercises, participants will begin developing immersive prototypes centered on discovery, interaction, and emotional engagement; and by the end of Day II, the workshop’s main assignment will be explained in full, with space left for questions.
Practical exercise: Prototype an immersive experience using emerging technologies, reimagining engagement in a specific museum, library, archive, or gallery.

Day III: Participant Presentations and Reflections
On Day III, participants will present their immersive prototypes, individually or in small groups, sharing their intentions, challenges, and design decisions. After each presentation, we will hold group reflections, focusing on what worked, what surprised us, and how each project could
continue to evolve.

About Mika Johnson
Mika Johnson is a multimedia artist based in Prague, specializing in immersive storytelling that blends technology, mythology, and ritual, with a strong focus on multisensory engagement. Since 2018, he has created traveling installations that integrate VR, spatial audio, projections, and other interactive mediums. His notable works include VRwandlung, a virtual reality adaptation of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis; The Infinite Library, an exploration of oral storytelling and biodiversity; and The Republic of Dreams, a sonic installation inspired by the dreamscapes of Bruno Schulz. Collectively, these projects have been showcased at over 100 installations worldwide, earning acclaim for their ability to engage audiences on both intellectual and sensory levels. Johnson’s latest project, Theta Noir, is a performance art initiative that uses multi-platform storytelling, speculative counter-myths, and ritual to challenge dominant AI narratives.