On 7 July 2025, Dr. Susanne Thurow (Sydney) gave her Fellow Lecture on the topic “Reimagining Access: Immersive Media for Transforming Cultural Engagement”:

In an age increasingly shaped by digital media and sensory overstimulation, traditional museum exhibition access – anchored in object-display and explanatory text – faces mounting challenges in sustaining visitor engagement. In response, Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum and University of New South Wales' (UNSW) iCinema Centre collaborated on a major research project that explores immersive 3D visualisation and sonification aesthetics as conduits for new, multi-sensory forms of storytelling within cultural institutions.

At its heart lies Victorian Reality, an experimental installation combining interactive 3D visualisation and spatialised sound – delivered via the Meta Quest 2 headset with Augmented Reality pass-through – with the physical display of historical objects. Via embodied engagement, the work invites reflection on often overlooked parallels between today’s social, cultural and technological transformations and those that unfolded in Sydney during the 1850s. Developed in close consultation with an Aboriginal Reference Group, the project’s rethinking of digital access centred culturally responsive co-design and ethical engagement.

The lecture outlined the conceptual premises, technological development process and curatorial strategies that shaped Victorian Reality to examine broader implications, potential and critical challenges that arise when immersive media aesthetics are brought into dialogue with museum environments. It reflected on how digital transformation reshapes not only access to cultural goods, but possibly the very frameworks of engagement, representation and epistemology within cultural institutions.

Dr. Susanne Thurow is a theatre scholar with a focus on immersive media, interactive visualisation and the artistic examination of social challenges of the 21st century. She currently heads the “Climate Aesthetics” research programme at the iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research at University of New South Wales, Sydney (Australia), whose strategic development she also coordinates as Associate Director Research.