After we covered the announcement of the Darkfield FLIGHT experience coming to Nottingham Lakeside Arts we were approached to go and review this unique experience.
Filled with anticipation (and mostly nerves) we headed to Lakeside Arts in Nottingham to see what the hype was all about.
FLIGHT by Darkfield Review
Standing all so innocently against the beautiful backdrop of Lakeside Arts we have FLIGHT.
Your standard generic shipping container on the outside and your immersive binaural experience inside.
The guys took us in for an early tour around the cabin an hour before our experience.
This gave us much more time to look around.
I want to express a huge thank you to Darkfield for letting us do that. We got some great footage and admiring the empty cabin appeased my nerdy persona.
The level of detail within the cabin is impressive indeed. Real plane parts have been transported from a Boeing 707 interior and inserted into this container.
When you walk inside you’re genuinely walking onto a screen-accurate reproduction of a jet interior. From the vintage seats to the overhead luggage compartments.
The scene is perfectly set and if you look a little closer there’s even more detail you wouldn’t catch the first time around.
Various flight notices and buttons, lifejacket stickers and safety notices. It’s all done so meticulously and it works perfectly to set the mood.
Screens hang from the cabin roof which plays an integral part in your flight experience.
The Darkfield Experience
The whole Darkfield FLIGHT simulator experience is based on the premise of Schrodinger’s Cat (read about the theory here) and the many world interpretations of quantum mechanics.
Now, this flew right over my uneducated head so let me break it down as simply as I can.
If you approach a box that contains a cat that you had no prior knowledge about you don’t know if that cat is alive or dead within the box.
The box is confined and in that very moment, the cat is both alive and dead as the outcome of that situation hasn’t revealed itself yet.
FLIGHT takes that experience and puts you in a parallel world where your FLIGHT has two outcomes, life or death. But because that outcome is not yet revealed you play the role of the cat. You’re currently alive and dead until one outcome is revealed.
This 40ft piece of metal will have you thinking deeply about a variety of outcomes, life choices and universe transcending thought processes.
It is here where FLIGHT takes you on a mental headache of epic proportions as we step into a realm of many questions and interpretations when your FLIGHT experience commences.
Get ready to face your mortality.
Take Your Seat
We were given our tickets to board the aircraft and we entered the shipping container (for the second time).
It was brilliant to see that when everyone walked on board the flight that people automatically were putting their spare bags in the luggage compartment and buckling their seat belts.
Not one person sat down and didn’t buckle their seatbelt. It’s almost pre-programmed into your brain and you do it naturally.
The vintage Boeing 707 seats were comfy and instantly everyone was on auto-pilot. Sitting down. Adjusting their seats, checking the safety card with nervous hesitation and more.
A gentleman sitting next to me had his hands gripped on his lap. Nervous, scared, regular seating adjustment. Who knows, but I was thoroughly enjoying how everyone was taking it seriously. Except for the guy behind me making holiday jokes. How original.
There’s always one idiot on a plane isn’t there?
We put on our binaural headphones (which were very comfy by the way) and were shown the safety message on the screens above us.
Then our ride began.
Thought-Provoking
Upon leaving the container you are left with many questions.
Firstly, you are contemplating what you’ve just witnessed and discussing certain highlights of your flight.
But at the same time, you’re a little disorientated having being plunged into darkness for 30-minutes.
Not only physically disorientated but mentally as all concept of reality disappears within the container.
Throughout the entire duration, I didn’t once think, oh I’m in a shipping container.
I was immersed in the experience and when the lights go off you really could be anywhere.
I’m writing this very review the day after my experience and I’m still thinking about it and the effect it’s left on me.
So whilst the title of this very article labels the experience as terrifying. It’s certainly more of a thought-provoking terror than a physical terror.
Check Out Our Video Review – NO SPOILERS
For more information check out http://www.darkfield.org
WARNING SPOILERS
DO NOT SCROLL DOWN ANY FURTHER UNLESS YOU WANT TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS
WARNING SPOILERS
DO NOT SCROLL DOWN ANY FURTHER UNLESS YOU WANT TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS
It would be wrong of me to spoil the entire experience, but we can at least mention a few mechanics and things you should expect within 30-minute runtime.
Throughout the entire experience, Schrodinger’s Cat is forever hinted at. A guest on the plane is named Mr. Schrodinger who is asked to come to the front.
You can hear a cat at various intervals within the experience and everything is constantly referencing the two realities you are currently facing.
At certain periods the two realities intertwine. You’re on a flight and everything is normal. People talking, trolleys you can head heading up the aisle’s everything is running smoothly.
Abruptly you’re now hurtling towards your demise, people are screaming and your entire seat is shaking vigorously and the whole cabin is moving.
Darkfield Mechanics
The entire shipping container is sitting on hydraulics, a wonderful lighting system and one hell of a subwoofer.
Every bump of the tarmac is felt when the plane takes off as the container shakes.
Your mind filling in the blanks as you can almost feel the wheels of the plane moving and I even had the butterfly feeling in my stomach when the plane ‘lifted’ off the ground.
The binaural audio design of the headphones is nothing short of spectacular.
You can hear whispering from a passenger in your left ear and a whisper from the captain in your right ear.
This good and evil stance adds more layers to the Shrodinger experiment you’re currently in.
One is a reassuring voice and the other is the voice of your demise. Overlapping in your current reality before your eventual fate is decided.
We were told that there are two outcomes of the simulator experience and the one we experienced. We survived.
I was quite disappointed about that as we were told the crash sequence is much more intense in terms of audio and movement.
I went into that shipping container looking to die (sounds cheerful doesn’t it?) and came out alive.
After coming out alive I imagine the alternate sequence could have had me exiting the container with a much more different outlook.
Certainly, an excuse for me to head down to King’s Cross in London in March to do the experience all over again.
Mind Blown
At one point during the experience, something is revealed. The whole world as you know it is blown to pieces.
It’s such a simple illusion but at that very moment your shipping container opens into this depth of field where reality is distorted.
I was so impressed at this particular part of the show as it was just a glimpse of the alternate reality which had been pitched to us throughout.
But a physical reality we could see before us. This alternate reality of the situation we were in visually shown to us.
Opening this narrow confined space into this reflective realm was insane. It felt as thou I was living through a horror movie for a split second.
At that very moment, it was the closest that I think I’ll ever come to truly experience an inception style perspective on the world we live in.
I was absolutely mind-blown!
Sound Design
If you’re expecting to go into the container to experience a physical crash experience I’m afraid you’ll be very disappointed.
Whilst the container had wonderful effects it relies on the binaural audio to draw you into the experience.
For the majority of the experience, you’re in complete darkness. No visuals to focus on just the audio that surrounds you.
The voices in your ear and the murmur of the jet engines to the left and right of your seat.
It was great to see such a dynamic range of audio. Every direction of conversation or noise could be pinpointed.
The container may have been dark but the audio gave you that insight and painted the picture of your surroundings.
Teased only by the cabin design in your mind before the lights go out.
This cabin visual embedded in your mind is visualized within the darkness. You know where the aisle is, the compartments above, the screens yet the darkness brings the terror alive.
Whoever crafted the audio did a phenomenal job. Single-handedly the best binaural audio I’ve witnessed to date.
Movie References
Whilst many articles in the media have highlighted Final Destination (myself included) as the go-to movie that’s the closest to this experience I’d like to pivot.
I certainly think Inception is the most accurate film that this experience relates to.
For me it was equally as confusing as the movie if you think too much into it. It’s the layers within the story that stand out as the most accurate film to describe this experience.
This layered dream state where alternate realities are taking place around you all with different outcomes and pathways.
Various overlapping realities that all contain a version of you thrust into various scenarios, situations, and experiences.
Some realities where your fate is sealed, yet to be sealed or you’re already dead.
Whilst being on a plane and crashing and predicting that fate is very Final Destination, it’s surface-level.
Flight from Darkfield goes deeper than your surface level and explores many alternate levels below (and above).
From the depths of darkness to the sky-high brightness and appreciation of life.
It almost has a Saw movie quality to it. The John Kramer theory of treasuring or appreciating your life.
Being put through a terrible ordeal to truly appreciate the life you have right now in this very second.
It’s very powerful stuff indeed.
Certainly a headache-inducing thought that’s for sure!
Darkfield Flight Review Overall
This binaural simulator experience is certainly a thought-provoking one.
Not everyone will enjoy this.
I’m more of a physical experience person myself. But I appreciated just how deep the story went and the big reveal I mentioned above was amazing to witness.
At the end of the day, the fact that this entire experience has been tailored within a shipping container is impressive. Very impressive.
The level of detail, the immersion and the complete isolation from the outside world make FLIGHT an experience you must check out.
Darkfield offers two other experiences currently. Seance and Coma.
Seance
Séance explores the psychology of a group of people who have been bombarded with suggestible material.
It is an intense sonic performance for twenty people at a time, lasting twenty terrifying minutes.
Coma
COMA invites audiences to take part in a mass experiment, to lie down together and slip into a collective dream, over 30 minutes.
Both contained within hipping units Seance allows you to sit down at a table to communicate with the dead and Coma is a collective dream experiment.
Both of the above experiences are less immersive in terms of the physical movement that FLIGHT brings but they’re more intense according to Darkfield.
They’re more horror focused and more terrifying. Their words, not mine. I look forward to finding out!
Lie down, turn off from the inside world and disappear from your body and embrace the power of your mind.
“I Can’t-Wait to Experience More!”
With my first taste of Darkfield’s experiences, I’m certainly looking forward to giving both of these experiments a try when they come to London in March.
