Become a Giant Virtual Insect at a New Prague Exhibit Devoted to Kafka

A newly opened exhibit aims to take the Prague Kafka experience to new heights, allowing visitors to actually inhabit the body of one of his most famous protagonists.

It invites visitors to don virtual reality glasses and, like the tormented bank clerk Gregor Samsa, become a “gigantic insect-like creature.”

“This fantastic space installation will present the original work of world literature, but transferred into a virtual reality in which the main hero is no longer Gregor Samsa, but you,” says program director of the Goethe-Institut Jakob Ráček.

Like Gregor Samsa participants must learn to control a buggy new body, moving through a room that has been faithfully modeled according to the literary original. Acoustic and visual sound effects lend to the authenticity of the staging.

The installation was created in cooperation with production company Achtung 4K and Prague Film School art director Mika Johnson. The Franz Kafka Society consulted on historical details.

Such a futuristic re-telling is a fitting tribute to the Prague-based writer, who biographer Reiner Stach Kafka says was, in fact, the spiritual father of virtual reality.

“As an enthusiastic visitor of cinemas and stereoscopic images, he once imagined that a two-dimensional image would merge with the spatial effect and create a new, completely illusory reality,” writes Stach.

The exhibit runs through March 31, 2018.

Opening hours are Tuesday-Thursday 13:00-19:00; Friday 11:00-17:00. Admission is free.

Note: A short waiting time should be expected as only one visitor at a time may enter the exhibit.