The Fourth Wall
VR Theater; Dramaturgy; Immersive Performance
VR Theater; Dramaturgy; Immersive Performance
The Fourth Wall is a VR theater work that reimagines the relationship between spectators and theatrical performance. Rather than viewing a play from a fixed seat, spectators can move among four interconnected spaces: the stage and audience area, backstage, control booth, and practice room.
Based on Act 1 of Laurent Baffie's Toc Toc, the work brings together multiple perspectives on a theatrical production. While three spaces share the same performance timeline, the practice room reveals an earlier layer of rehearsal. By moving between these spaces, spectators encounter not only the performance itself but also the processes through which it was created.
Each space reveals a different aspect of theatrical production, from the staged performance to backstage preparation, technical operations, and rehearsal. Together, these perspectives make the work behind the performance visible.
The experience begins on an unfinished physical stage, where a spectator puts on a VR headset and enters the virtual Stage & Audience Area. From there, the spectator can navigate between the four spaces through selectable hotspots, freely choosing where to observe the performance and revisiting spaces throughout the experience.
Rather than following a predetermined viewing sequence, the spectator actively assembles their own perspective through spatial navigation.
The four spaces are organized across two temporal layers. The Stage & Audience Area, Backstage, and Control Booth share a synchronized present-performance timeline. Moving between them reveals different aspects of the same theatrical moment without interrupting its progression.
The Practice Room, in contrast, contains recordings of earlier rehearsals. By moving between these spaces, the spectator can encounter both the present performance and the past through which it was formed.
The performance is divided into six narrative segments, each corresponding to rehearsal material from an earlier stage of production. This alignment allows spectators to move between the performed scene and its rehearsal-stage formation at the same narrative moment, revealing the temporal depth of theatrical production.
Artist: Soyun Baek
Year: 2025
Baek, S., & Han, S. (2026). Designing an Audience Access Structure Model for Single-Viewer VR Performance: A Case Study of The Fourth Wall. Journal of Broadcast Engineering, 31(4), 639–656.
This research was supported by the ANCHOR through the Seoul ANCHOR Center, funded by the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Seoul Metropolitan Government (2026-ANCHOR-01-024-06); and by the MSIT (Ministry of Science and ICT), Korea, under the Graduate School of Virtual Convergence support program (RS-2024-00418847) supervised by the IITP (Institute for Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation).