Exploring Immersive Media in Washington D.C.

Washington, D.C. is emerging as an institutional laboratory for immersive media, where national museums, universities, and third places experiment with new forms of mediation already permeated by AI.

As a federal district under the jurisdiction of Congress, Washington, D.C. stands as both a political and cultural capital, home to an exceptional concentration of national monuments and museums. Constantly evolving, the city is engaged in ongoing reflection on the role and future of museums and is undergoing an immersive revolution across multiple dimensions. In this context, Washington has emerged as a hub for new technologies, where immersive practices function as tools for mediation, conservation, and the transmission of knowledge. This momentum extends across a broader regional ecosystem linking D.C., Baltimore, and Pittsburgh, bringing together heritage institutions, universities, innovation, and the growing presence of artificial intelligence in immersive practices.

A “Museum City” at the Forefront of Immersive Heritage

With around 80 public institutions, most of them free and federally funded, Washington carries a main responsibility: to make the nation’s history legible to all its citizens. For a new generation of museum technologists, that idea became an invitation to experiment with immersive media.  

National Geographic Museum of Exploration 

Scheduled to open in June 2026, the National Geographic Museum of Exploration represents the ambition of being a museum originally conceived as an immersive space. The building will include a 400-seat theater with enveloping projections, nighttime mapping experiences, and interactive installations throughout. The museum will also include the Learning Launchpad, an interactive space designed for younger visitors, focused on exploration through digital and physical activities. For Emily Dunham, Chief Campus and Experiences Officer at National Geographic Society, the museum is ultimately intended as a place to “educate, engage, inspire and empower audiences from around the world,” while inviting visitors to “unleash their inner explorer.” Rotating exhibitions will draw from National Geographic’s vast archives, spotlighting themes such as ocean science, wildlife research, and human cultures through photography, film, and field research. 

The Smithsonian’s Digitization Program Office 

The Smithsonian Institution is the world’s largest museum and research complex, based in Washington, D.C. It brings together 21 museums, a national zoo, and a network of research centers, collectively holding around 157 million objects, specimens, and artworks. In practice, only a small fraction of these collections is ever on public view at any given time. That gap, between what exists and what the public can see, is the problem that the Digitization Program Office (DPO) was created to solve. 

Founded in 2009, the DPO has built an ambitious 3D digitization program. Under the direction of Diane Zorich, the office has been transforming physical artifacts into freely downloadable 3D objects, accessible to anyone through the Smithsonian 3D platform.  

The work has consequences that reach far beyond Washington. Researchers, educators, and XR creators around the world have adopted these assets, developing a new economy of immersive cultural content. As the DPO’s own team puts it, digitization is transforming what curators, conservators, and scientists can do: researchers now return from the field not only with specimens, but with 3D data. 

One of the example of this is the AR Reef experience, developed with The Hydrous, a nonprofit led by coral reef ecologist Erika Woolsey, and Adobe. Using scanned biological samples from the Smithsonian collection, the project reconstructs a coral reef ecosystem in augmented reality, with photorealistic textures that allow visitors to explore this environment. It reflects the possibility for museums to work alongside scientists and technology partners to expand access to knowledge through immersive formats. 

The Daughters of the American Revolution Museum

Only a few blocks from the White House, the Daughters of the American Revolution Museum has been approaching digital engagement from a different angle: humor, and interactivity. In preparation of the United States’ 250th anniversary in 2026, the museum developed “Create Your Own Period Room”, an online game that invites users to furnish and design a historic interior using assets drawn directly from the museum’s collection. This playful experience reflects a broader shift across museums toward making history more accessible and engaging.  

A Rich Academic Environment for Experimentation

If Washington’s museums are where immersive media meets the public, the universities of the broader corridor are where it gets tested, questioned, and pushed further.  

University of Maryland 

At University of Maryland, the Immersive Media Design program was built around the idea that the future of immersive creation requires both artists and engineers. Students can choose between a Bachelor of Arts focused on emerging creative practices and a Bachelor of Science rooted in computing, moving fluidly between game engines, motion capture, 3D scanning, virtual production, and AI-driven design tools. The program’s structure is embodied by faculty such as Matthew Nolan, a musician, game designer, and new media educator whose work encourages intersection of art and technology.  

This program extends through MAVRIC at the University of Maryland (Mixed/Augmented/Virtual Reality and Immersive Computing), launched in 2017 by Amitabh Varshney and Julie Lenzer with the ambition of making Maryland an “East Coast hub of immersive media.” Since then, the initiative has supported projects in accessibility, environmental visualization, health, and science communication, while building a structured university ecosystems for immersive media. 

Towson University’s Planetarium 

At Towson University, immersive storytelling is being reimagined in the university’s planetarium. Originally designed for astronomy education, the dome has become a testing ground for new narrative forms through a collaboration between animator Lynn Tomlinson and Christian Ready, director of the university’s planetarium. Known for what she describes as “moving paintings,” Tomlinson began exploring how her work could evolve in a space where there are no fixed frame and no single point of view. In a dome environment, storytelling becomes spatial: audiences look up, around, and beyond the conventions of traditional cinema screens. Together with students, the two professors have used the planetarium as a creative laboratory, producing projects such as Our Colorful World, which received Best Educational Film at Dome Fest West.  

Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute in Baltimore

Through the Music for New Media program at Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute in Baltimore, students learn to compose not only for film, television, and video games, but increasingly for virtual and augmented reality experiences, where sound helps shape movement, emotion, and spatial perception. The curriculum blends classical training with courses in sound design, music production, and game audio implementation, while students collaborate with filmmakers, developers, and live musicians on real-world projects. Thanks to professors such as Thomas Tolby, the program offers a hybrid approach where immersive audio emerge as a storytelling language. 

The Generative Museum Pittsburgh 

“What might museums become in the age of artificial intelligence?” Opening at Carnegie Mellon University in 2027, that’s the question raised by the Generative Museum. This future institution offers visitors the opportunity to enter prompts and create their own virtual exhibitions using work from KADIST’s international collection and local archives from Pittsburg. Led by Elizabeth Chodos, the initiative points toward a future where exhibitions are more participatory and increasingly shaped by their audiences. As Executive Director of the future Institute for Contemporary Art, she is also rethinking what a museum can be by combining physical and digital forms of experimentation. 

Permanent Spaces for Immersive Eperiences 

ARTECHOUSE DC 

Before expanding to New York City and Miami, ARTECHOUSE began in Washington, D.C., where founders Sandro Kereselidze and Tatiana Pastukhova spent years searching for a permanent space to bring digital art into the physical world. In 2015, they found a 15,000-square-foot space that would become the foundation for a new kind of cultural institution. When ARTECHOUSE DC opened in 2017, it became the first permanent digital art space in the United States. For Kereselidze, the goal was never simply to showcase technology, but to help define a new artistic medium. Since then, ARTECHOUSE has produced more than 36 exhibitions, collaborated with nearly 40 artists, and reached more than 1.7 million visitors across physical spaces and XR platforms. Artists such as Refik Anadol, and Zach Lieberman have exhibited there, while large-scale interactive installations now allow visitors to shape artworks in real time through movement and participation. 

Sandbox VR 

Founded in 2016 by Steve Zhao, Sandbox VR emerged with the idea that virtual reality should be experienced in group, not alone. The company built physical arenas where groups of up to six people enter fully tracked environments designed to simulate shared presence in virtual worlds. The experiences are developed with teams from studios such as EA, Sony, and Ubisoft and combine original narratives with licensed universes including Stranger Things and Squid Game. Inside the room, participants move as visible avatars, interacting in real time as they progress through tightly scripted scenarios.  The result is a form of entertainment that challenges the boundary between game and cinema in a collective setting. 

Excurio in Washington, D.C 

Founded in France in 2020 by Fabien Barati and Emmanuel Guerriero, Excurio has developed a new standard in cultural entertainment: “Immersive Expeditions.” Designed to be experienced in groups, these large-scale virtual reality adventures take place inside physical spaces allowing visitors to move freely at a 1:1 scale through reconstructed historical or scientific environments. Today, Excurio’s productions have reached more than four million visitors across museums, cultural institutions, and dedicated venues in cities including Chicago, Montreal, and Shanghai. Each experience is built on collaboration with historians, scientists, and artists, combining narrative design with research-based reconstruction.  

That model is now visible in Washington, D.C., with Horizon of Khufu. This immersive experience brings visitors inside the Great Pyramid of Giza as it stood more than 4,500 years ago. In small groups, they walk through reconstructed corridors, enter chambers, and move through a carefully staged version of ancient Egypt built from archaeological research and narrative design.