From 7 to 18 October 2020 the BFI London Film Festival held their first ever edition of LFF:Expanded for XR and Immersive Art, alongside the film programme of over 50 virtual premieres, free online events and cinema screenings across the land.
The Guardian journalist Sanjoy Roy attended this inaugural immersive edition of the festival, describing DAZZLE as
“…giddying perspectives, algorithmic choreography and psychedelic dancing figures – humanoid, geometric or entirely abstract – that can pass right through you like digital ectoplasm. It’s pure fantasy…”
Read more in their festival wrap up review, here.
Sight & Sound invited Marisol Grandon of Unfold Stories to review the immersive experiences at London Film Festival, she reminisces on DAZZLE as:
“…a set of absurdist monochrome soundscapes […] wildly patterned scenes and characters set to playful glitchy electronica, paying tribute to the elaborate costumes worn at the ball: stripes, twists, spirals, harlequins and polkadots compete with grey space and grainy, visual noise.”
Read more on the Sight & Sound online edition, here.
Springback Magazine writer Ka Bradley took an overview of how the festival was “taking steps into virtual dancing”, describing DAZZLE as:
“It’s like entering a chessboard that has come alive and had an identity crisis. In one ‘room’, we are in the tunnels of a strange city, the grating above us filled with dancers ticking and tocking and turning in beautiful spirals. In another, we are inside a black-and-white soft-play tech nightmare, where the walls bulge and bubble, and peculiar, quasi-humanoid shapes stretch and bounce in and out of canniness.”
Read more in Springback’s online edition, here.