IDFA DocLab, the new media program of the IDFA documentary festival, will be showing interactive documentary art and immersive storytelling in an exhibition at De Brakke Grond from November 14 to 22, 2025.
Under the theme Off the Internet, around 30 works will be on display, with a striking number of Dutch designers and artists, including Jeroen van Loon, Celine Daemen, Roel Wouters & Luna Maurer, and Jan Rothuizen.
IDFA DocLab: Off the Internet explores the paradox of our time: the growing desire to disconnect, the impossibility of ever truly logging off, and the inherent privilege of stepping offline. With this year’s theme Off the Internet, DocLab turns to interactive and immersive art in search of new forms of presence and connection.
Explore the full program of IDFA DocLab at idfa.nl/doclab. Below you will find a number of Dutch projects that can be seen and experienced during DocLab, as well as more information about the Playrooms and Interactive Cinema.
Life Needs Internet – Jeroen van Loon
What is your relationship with the internet? How does it shape your life? Jeroen van Loon collected over 1,400 letters on this topic from people around the world. The result is an installation that asks: Do we need the internet in our lives?
Lesbian Simulator – Iris van der Meule
In this VR experience by Iris van der Meule you create your own lesbian avatar, go on a first date and visit your first rave. But also: come out of the closet and face harassment and public disapproval. This cartoonish VR game puts everyonein the situations you can encounter as a lesbian woman.
Gamer Keyboard Wall Piece #2 – Sjef van Beers
In this video-installation artist Sjef van Beers questions the stereotypical image of the gamer. He juxtaposes memes that have emerged from internet culture in recent decades with quotes from feminist theory. By placing them side by side, Van Beers exposes online influences on contemporary adolescent masculinity.
Deep Soup – Roel Wouters & Luna Maurer
Digital technology is increasingly steering us toward a world of the mind, a frictionless existence that has become detached from our physical experience. With this film, posthumanist artists Luna Maurer and Roel Wouters attempt to turn the tide. They seek a way to lead people away from their screens and back to a physical and material experience. The duo invited people online to contribute their own videos about breaking, rolling, sinking, floating, and falling. All these videos go into the soup—a poison-green physical intelligence that is trained on the collected images. Deep Soup can be seen in the exhibition and during a filmscreening in IDFA’s Documentary Pavilion and at EYE.
Nothing To See Here – Celine Daemen
Peer into this stereoscopic viewing box by artist Celine Daemen and experience an alternative reality in the middle of a busy public space. Is that man who’s behaving strangely real or fictional? And what’s happening behind your back? Is reality actually an objective truth.
Tracing Colombia – Jan Rothuizen
Visual artist Jan Rothuizen returns to DocLab with an immersive, interactive film in which he travels to Colombia with his camera and drawing materials for an investigative, personal journey. What traces of the country’s complex history does he see in modern Colombia?
We are Dead Animals – Tote Tiere Maarten
Bring animals back to life in the virtual paradise created by Tote Tiere Maarten—from a deer shot by hunters to a hedgehog run over by a car. A collectible album of animal cards, with a twist.
The Oracle: Rituals for the Future (for humans and non-humans) – Victorine van Alphen
The Oracle is a thought-provoking futuristic ritual about the evolving relationship between humans, bodies and AI. Blending personal perspectives with an eerie systemic presence, participants delve into sensuality, death, agency and irreversible change.
DocLab Exhibition at de Brakke Grond
The above projects will be on display daily from November 14 to 22, 2025, from 11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the DocLab exhibition at the Flemish Cultural Center De Brakke Grond. The exhibition includes an Interactive Cinema and three DocLab Playrooms. Admission to the exhibition is on a pay-what-you-want basis.
DocLab Playrooms
Free walk-in events on 15, 17 & 18 November at de Brakke Grond. From the art of perception to the future of digital preservation: experience new technologies and prototypes, and meet the artists during interactive showcases.
VR Gallery
In the VR Gallery at de Brakke Grond, you can explore various virtual reality films and experiences: a range of projects to broaden your scope, long after you’ve removed the headset. One VR Booth in the exhibition space is open for free walk-ins.
Interactive Cinema
New this year is the Interactive Cinema, where games and web documentaries turn into shared experiences. Think Twitch or co-op gaming: but live, in a shared physical space, where that collective moment makes all the difference. You will find the Interactive Cinema in the DocLab Exhibition.
DocLab at the Planetarium: Down to Earth
Planetariums invite us to look up at the stars. But during this evening, we will turn our gaze to the ground, exploring the myriad worlds that meet and diverge on the earth we share.
IDFA DocLab 2025: Off the Internet
Brakke Grond, Amsterdam
14 – 22 November, 2025
festival.idfa.nl/doclab
