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'Extinction Beckons' is the most immersive, non-immersive experience in London right now

If you read our last Weekend Roundup then you’ll know that London’s latest ‘immersive art experience’ has been getting a lot of press recently.

David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away) at the Lightroom in King’s Cross has benefited hugely from comparisons to previous exhibitions like Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience and Dali: The Immersive Experience, both of which were pretty much panned by critics and audiences alike for being overpriced and underwhelming.

As well as being smart enough not to call itself Hockney: The Immersive Experience, Bigger & Closer sets itself apart from its experiential forerunners by having the artist involved in its creation (and by not being resolutely shit).

But is the Hockney exhibition really ‘immersive’?

“Seeming to surround the audience, player, etc. so that they feel completely involved in something.”

That’s how the Cambridge dictionary defines immersive, and at first glance Bigger & Closer would seem to fit the bill. After all, it’s…