This time last year we profiled French-Canadian director Vincent Morisset in Protein Journal #11. Morisset made his name directing a host of ground-breaking, technologically innovative music videos for Arcade Fire but has since gone on to develop an entirely new interactive medium known as Film for Computer.

To the uninformed, Morisett’s films for computers, (amongst others) the award winning Bla Bla and his most recent Way to Go (an official selection at 2015 Sundance Film Festival) may seem like rudimentary video games, but for Morisett, these are films designed to create a visceral connection between the viewer and the piece, giving them an illusion of control and freedom.

For Way To Go, Morisett teamed up with Caroline Robert, Édouard Lanctôt-Benoit and Studio AATOAA. The film takes viewers on a trip through the woods, blending a mixture of hand-made animation, 360˚ video capture, music, dreaming and code. Players or viewers are free to explore and test the boundaries of the system to see what can and cant be done and are encouraged (largely through lack of direct instruction) to try new ways of interacting.

For Morisset, the technology isn’t a gimmick or a way of achieving a superficial, short-lived burst of internet hype; rather, it’s a means of allowing the viewer to tap into a level of emotional immersion unattainable by other means.