ARTE France and Atlas V co-produced Caravaggio In Tenebris, a seven-minute virtual reality animation built from the paintings of Caravaggio, which has been shown to the public in VR museum programmes since 2019. It is a single-user, seated or standing headset experience that places visitors inside the painter's Rome.
On Friday 30 October 2026 the Micro-Folie digital museum at the Les Mureaux media library presents the work as a Halloween offering, as part of a partnership between Micro-Folie and ARTE. Sessions are free with advance booking, open to visitors aged 14 and over in groups of up to four, and run in seven 15-minute slots starting between 2:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. Admission is restricted to older teenagers and adults because some artistic themes may be upsetting.
The experience
ARTE describes the work as an imaginary journey through a maze of narrow streets, from the gilded splendour of a Roman palace bathed in light to the dark and dangerous back streets of Caravaggio's world. Directed by Matthieu Van Eeckhout, it is an animation drawn from Caravaggio's paintings, and its scenes stage figures from those paintings in candlelit chiaroscuro settings such as a church interior and a tavern. The festival listing gives Oculus Quest compatibility and a seated (360-degree chair) or standing play area.
Where it has been shown
- Les Mureaux, France: scheduled Micro-Folie session on 30 October 2026.
- Plan-les-Ouates, Switzerland: VR Museum programme, 2020.
- Trois-Rivieres, Canada: VR Museum selection at Culture Trois-Rivieres, 2021.
- Festivals: GIFF Virtual Territories and BIFAN Beyond Reality, both 2019.
The work was released in 2019.
