NAZVR

This part-memoir, part-immersive archive draws audiences inside a digital reconstruction of the creator’s childhood home on an intimate journey that follows the complexities of her relationship with her mother across three decades marked by regional unrest and her eventual migration.

Nazar unfolds as experiential poetry within evil eye protection sessions, shared regularly over the years by mother and daughter, communicated primarily through touch.

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Fumigation Practice

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Liminal Space

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Interactive Objects

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Fumigation

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Salam interview

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Slowly moving past personal narratives, embodied performances invite audiences to experience these practices, extended virtually into a speculative future, not only as methodologies of deeply enduring care but as ritualistic acts of soft resistance.

Nazar culminates in a magical choreography of motion-captured gestures, surveillance drones recordings, and chants, sealing a covenant between a people and their land, moon, clouds, stars and vines.

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“This has been an unmatched experience that far exceeded what I thought could be accomplished in relation to performance and rooted sensorial knowledge”

Sursock Museum User-Testing [2024]
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Scene 1: living Room

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Scene 2: Bedroom

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Scene 3: liminal space

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Scene 4: Fumigation

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Offboarding

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The experience is informed by an ongoing research that delves into the constellation of protection practices, passed-down from mother to daughter for generations across Southern Lebanon.

XR artist Lara Kobeissi prototyping live performance in VR in Sursock Museum's Salon Arabe
XR Artist Lara Kobeissi and theatre practitionner Hanane Hajj Ali at Brixton House Theatre in London, prototyping Nazar a multi-sensory performance in VR where touch is the central mode of communication.

To learn more about our research, click here ……………………………………….. ↓↓↓↓↓↓

XR artist Lara Kobeissi performing VR experience Nazar at Guildhall during Past Makes Future micro-conference in 2024
Nazar | User-testing session at Guildhall, UK [2024]
Photograph showing XR Artist Lara Kobeissi performing Nazar a live performance incorporating VR at Sursock Museum March 2024
Nazar | User-testing session at Sursock Museum, Beirut [2024]
photograph showing user-testing of Nazar live Perfromance at Aspex Gallery 2023 friday late futurescape XR artist Lara Kobeissi
Nazar | User-testing session at Aspex Portsmouth [2023]

Nazar at Shubbak Festival

Nazar at Shubbak Festival x LADA [2025]

Liminal Space Touch Inetraction Close-up

Nazar at Shubbak Festival x LADA, London [2025]

Multisensory Performance Touch Interaction

Nazar at Shubbak Festival x LADA, London [2025]

Nazar Offboarding

Nazar at Shubbak Festival x LADA, London [2025]

Nazar Object-based Worldbuilding

Nazar at Shubbak Festival x LADA, London [2025]

Onboarding Sequence

Nazar at D-CAF Festival, Cairo [2024]

Thomas Onboarding Wider Audiences

Nazar at D-CAF Festival, Cairo [2024]

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Created and performed by Lara Habib Kobeissi
Creative Technology and XR Development Pete Roobol
Sound Design Sarmad Louis and Rawane Khater
Creative Production Thomas Buckley
XR Art Lara Habib Kobeissi
Performance Design Consultancy Hanane Hajj Ali and Sarmad Louis

Contributors:
Salam Ali Sbeity
Soad Jrady
Lina and Itaf Karaki
Sahar and Yusra Kobeissi


Nazar//Runthrough in VR [Arabic]

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