Nothing to see here takes you into an alternative reality
In the middle of a busy train station, you pause out of curiosity to peer into an object that is like a peep show. You see yourself at that station, with your head on the peep-show box and surrounded by the other travellers. But the pigeons, the scattered plastic litter and the wolfhound were not there just now, were they? A man puts his hand on your shoulder, but when you look up, no one is standing there. This is Nothing to see here by director Celine Daemen and Studio Nergens: a mobile immersive installation that uses live 3D images, fictional characters and spatial sound to question your perception of reality. The project received support through the Creative Industries Fund NL’s Immerse\Interact Grant Scheme (next deadline 31 March 2026, 16:00 CEST).
5 March 2026
exploring the boundary between real and fake
What do we see as reality? Based on that broad social question, director Celine Daemen developed Nothing to See Here. ‘Fragmented truths in endless doomscrolling, AI videos of cute but non-existent cats, fake news reports – reality is not one fixed fact, but something relational that comes into being in the interaction between our body, the other and the space,’ she says. ‘By literally positioning someone opposite themselves, I hope to force the audience to rethink that relationship for a moment.’
That is exactly what the installation does: a camera films you from above and projects you live as a double, while fictional scenes unfold around this double. Through interaction with the characters and a spatial soundscape, the boundaries of reality become systematically more blurred. Daemen, who studied at the Toneelacademie Maastricht and received an award at the 2023 Venice Biennale for her immersive VR installation Songs for a Passerby, developed the project in collaboration with art director and technical director Aron Fels, sound artist Aurélie Nyirabikali Lierman and spatial sound engineer Wouter Snoei.
By literally positioning someone opposite themselves, I hope to force the audience to rethink the relationship between our body, the other and the space.
technology in the service of wonder
One of the most ingenious elements of the installation is the so-called mechanism of ‘time bending’, developed by developer Sjoerd van Acker and art & tech director Aron Fels. When a visitor leans forward to look into the peep-show box, a camera captures that moment. The clip is later played backwards: at the exact moment a fictitious lost man taps the double on the shoulder, the recorded visitor on screen stands up to listen. This is one of the many ways that Nothing to see here distorts reality.
‘It took several days to tweak this mechanism,’ Daemen says. ‘Because the audience is so unexpected and diverse, it’s extremely difficult to figure out when to turn that mechanism on and off. All the more enjoyable, of course, when it succeeds.’
the public space as stage
Nothing to see here enjoyed its world premiere at IDFA DocLab (November 2025), but the project may thrive even better in unexpected places. The prototype could be seen at Heerlen-Centraal Station during Cultura Nova, and afterwards at Muziekgebouw Amsterdam. Each of those contexts gave the installation a different feel.
When the installation is placed in a public space, it creates something I would describe as social choreography.
‘In a place like Heerlen Station, something happened that I would almost describe as social choreography,’ Daemen says. ‘People who normally keep walking in a hurry became curious and paused for a moment anyway.’ The installation encourages spontaneous conversations between total strangers about the nature of reality. In this way, major philosophical questions become accessible without the work losing complexity.
‘To see a group of strangers of different ages and backgrounds having a chat and while doing so asking the question whether we actually agree on what is real, I find that moving and important in these times,’ Daemen says.
In the controlled environment of the Muziekgebouw or IDFA DocLab, however, the experience became more intimate and concentrated: the sound design came into its own in the smallest of nuances, and visitors entered into an inner journey more consciously.
follow-up
The installation can soon be seen during Festival Cement in ‘s-Hertogenbosch (20 to 27 March). After this festival, Daemen wants the installation to continue travelling to unlikely in-between spaces, as she calls them: shopping centres, railway stations, metro platforms, libraries and the arrivals hall at Schiphol Airport. In places where people are on their way from A to B, she wants to disrupt the space a little, but in a loving way. ‘I hope a lot more people will put their heads into this peep-show box for a moment, only to emerge somewhat confused and dazed. That they look at the world around them with new eyes.’
Nothing to see here is a production by Studio Nergens, and was made possible in part by the Creative Industries Fund NL’s Immerse\Interact Grant Scheme. The Immerse\Interact Grant Scheme supports the development, realisation and distribution of artistically high-quality, immersive and interactive media productions. The subsidy periods in 2026 are 14 January 15:00 CET – 31 March 16:00 CEST and 24 June 15:00 CEST – 25 August 16:00 CEST.
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