Driven by his love for compelling narratives, visual storytelling, and plain chaos, Joren Vandenbroucke finds himself in ever so little time to execute all his story ideas, ranging from animation to VR to performance.
Joren Vandenbroucke tried to capture the essence of a typical west-flemish pub in this VR experience. The characters are speaking the characteristic dialect from Joren’s hometown, Poperinge. Eyeballing the characters for too long though leads to imminent conflict. Available for the Quest and Oculus Go on Sidequest. If you don’t have either of these devices you can also watch the video above.
The West Flemish Pub Experience was created as a graduation project at KASK School of Arts with support from DeAuteurs and Toneelkring Ic Dien Poperinge.
Drie geraniums op een vensterbank (Three geraniums on a windowsill) is an immersive performance in which three houseplants take a look at their mustachioed owner: Patrick, a man in his late thirties who looks like a man in his late forties. Through virtual reality, one steps into the reality the man set up for himself, but in which he inevitably got stuck. His three geraniums watch, sigh and comment. They try to see through the banality of his daily routine, looking for depth. So far without success. Patrick notices nothing of the existential enquiry his houseplants are immersed in and continues slurping his coffee, working down his ready-made lasagne and preparing to do exactly the same the next day.
This performance is the first collaboration between Joren and soprano Annelies Van Hijfte. Together they aim to explore the uncharted realm of possibilities provided by new immersive technologies like VR.
Created with the support of Eigen Kweek, a regional platform for talent development in Flanders.
After exploring VR for some years Joren has turned back to the far more convenient medium of moving images accompanied by sound. Patania is an animated short film about a lost deepseabed mining robot trying to find her way home through the darkness of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. Based on facts which occured in april 2021, this short wants to use fiction to fill in the gaps left by the facts while also bringing public attention the imminent ecological disaster mining companies want to bring upon the deepsea.
Produced by Cinnamon Entertainment with support of the Flemish Audiovisual Fund.
(in development)
After the roaring success of his earlier VR performance Drie geraniums op een vensterbank, Joren got peer pressured into making a VR sequel to the first story. The Great Escape (of three geraniums) centers around the three geraniums left on the windowsill of Patrick who are dying of boredom. The viewer enters the story as the third geranium in the flowerpot and sets in motion a series of events which leads to the titular great escape of the geraniums. After which they’ll have to deal with the outside world. Oh boy.
Produced by Animal Tank with support of the Flemish Audiovisual Fund.
(in development)
STOLP
STOLP (English title: The Greenhouse) is another collaboration between Annelies Van Hijfte and Joren. This new VR opera experience is a twenty-minute immersive performance in which the audience finds themselves in a large, palatial conservatory. They follow a woman who haunts it in self-isolation and tends the plants around her. The space is disturbed by outside elements, but the more violently the woman resists them, the more the glass walls begin to crack, compromising her internal struggle to keep her safe, enclosed world intact. Eventually the greenhouse opens up, and the woman, together with the plants, embraces the inevitable change.
The amazing pastel visuals of the experience are being developed by animation artist Juliette Pons.
Currently in development with support of the Flemish Audiovisual Fund.
Has Joren Vandenbroucke enticed you and do you now feel a sudden urge to reach out to this elusive person?
Don’t worry.
This happens.
This too shall pass.