VR – Ella Raidel

Deer Buttons [Hirschknöpfe] is an immersive Cine-VR work framed as a time-travel apparatus. Set in the Austrian Salzkammergut, it follows a fictional traveller from a distant future moving through fragmented traces of the present. Guided by the spectral voices of former salt-mine workers, the work unfolds as a spatial and sonic archive where memories of labour, extraction, and ecological transformation linger within the landscape.

The title refers to the traveller’s encounter with the region’s last remaining button maker, where she acquires a button carved from deer antler—a fragile relic of a disappearing more-than-human world. Through layered sound and embodied presence, Deer Buttons reflects on deep time, industrial heritage, and the traces humans leave behind, revealing memory as an unresolved constellation within a living audiovisual landscape.

Deer Buttons, a Cine-VR opera developed for the European Capital of Culture Salzkammergut 2024, emerged from the larger project Regional Express, which combines two parallel journeys: an audio experience aboard a regional train traversing the Salzkammergut and the immersive Cine-VR work Deer Buttons. Together, these interconnected experiences extend the journey into a speculative and poetic encounter with the region’s histories, industrial heritage, and landscapes.

Deer Buttons [Hirschknöpfe]:  Cine-VR Opera, 2025, 11 min.
Concept, Direction and Artistic Research : Ella Raidel
Cinematography and Cine-VR Production : Benjamin Seide
Music and Sound Composition:  Sander Saarmets | V4R1
Spatial Audio: Matthias Kassmannhuber | Hear VR
Cast: Yakira Cang and Knopferl Maier
Choir: Gemischter Chor Altmünster
Producer: Marlene Rutzendorfer | Wonderland 

Regional Express a project for the European Capital of Culture Salzkammergut 2024

Deer Buttons is featured in FIVARS Spotlight Stories 2026 LINK

Set Photos Credit: Pia Fronia

A collaborative Virtual Reality project by Ella Raidel (Austria/Singapore) and Hyun-Suk Seo (South Korea) Saturday 26 March, Work-in-progress presentation, 2:00 – 6:00pm, Residencies Studios, NTU CCA Singapore, Blk 38 Malan Road, #01 – 07

The Insensible Cities is a collaborative cinematic Virtual Reality project by Ella Raidel and Hyun-Suk Seo based on the two artists’ ongoing research on the ways human senses interact with modernist architectural ideas in different Asian cultures. Incorporating elements of performance in the most advanced capacities of VR technology, The Insensible Cities results from the artists’ shared interest in addressing and challenging the ideological and historical frameworks that govern one’s origins and identities. Through the sensory documentation of the multiple layers of time, memory, perception, and ideas, The Insensible Cities is a unique VR experience that reintroduces, reinterprets, and restructures the changing dimensions of everyday life in Asia beyond the conventions of cinema and performing arts.

The Insensible Cities is supported by Arts Council Korea (ARKO) and International Arts Joint Fund Korea-Singapore International Exchange Program. NTU Cohass Arts and Humanities Research Grant, ADM School of Art, Design, and Media.