Voices of VR

Andrew Schneider’s "NOWISWHENWEARE (the stars)" absolutely blew me away, and it was a story-driven, immersive art exhibit at the University of Texas Performing Arts Center that opened at the end of SXSW. It uses a cube of 4000 LED lights in a dark theater space to create a visual spectacle, but also to hide an incredible magic trick. There was an array of 392 speakers hidden on three different walls creating one of the most complex and nuanced spatial audio storytelling experiences that I've ever heard. I was profoundly moved by the themes of grief, loss, and our place in the cosmos as he uses the low-bit visual experience to amplify the richness of the audio storytelling featuring beautiful biomimicry moments, large movements of abstract shapes, as well as allusions to stars and constellations. It's an experience that transcends my ability to fully communicate how incredible it was, but I did have a chance to have an in-depth chat with Schneider to talk about his journey in creating it. From theatre-maker to NYU ITP, Schneider does a brilliant job of mashing up data inputs with novel outputs, but all serving the larger journey he's taking us on as a master storyteller. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

Wayne Powell is the Global Artist Relations Manager for d&b audiotechnik, and he's been getting more and more interested in how independent artists and musicians are using spatial audio. He was in Austin, Texas with an array of 13 speakers enabling a spatial audio mix for Roman Rappak's annual Ristband mixed reality live performance. I had a chance to catch up with Powell to learn more about his journey into the immersive audio realm, why spatial audio storytelling experiences are currently capturing his attention, and some of the other trends, exciting immersive artists, and immersive audio hotspots around the world. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

On the last day of immersive exhibitions, I saw Roman Rappak's latest RISTBAND mixed reality live performance experiment, which now has a 4-year streak going at SXSW. This year he added an array of 13 d&b audiotechnik speakers that used wave field synthesis to create a spatial audio mix that was added to his mixed reality performance. I have Rappak recount the evolution of this MR live performance (not using Pico HMDs), and see my interviews about unpacking previous live performances from 2022, 2023, and 2024. Rappak shares that adding immersive art to a live musical performance leaves audiences searching for a story, and if he didn't provide one then people would make one up. He's been adding voice-over narration to more deliberately guide the story he's telling, but also experimenting with spatial audio mixes using high-end speakers. I had a chance to catch up with both Rappak and d&b artist relations manager Wayne Powell (in episode #1536) about his latest spatial audio innovations. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

The Polyphonic Spree band founder Tim Delaughter was looking for innovative ways to get people to listen to the entirety of his latest album called Salvage Enterprise. He was driving around a lot of speakers in his van and setting up pop-up listening parties around his home town when he thought there should be a better way to coax people into listening to his entire album, which is something that's a lot more rare in today's fragmented media ecosystem. He worked with Scott Berman as his long-time collaborator on visuals to recruit a number of different animators and filmmakers to create a dome version featuring his entire album called RESOLUTION: A CINEPHONIC RHAPSODY FOR THE SOUL. It's the first time SXSW has been able to curate a dome experience (which showed on the main showroom floor), and it was one of the experiences that was able to quickly fill up their 20 available slots per hour across their six showings a day. It ended up taking home the Audience Award for the XR Experience Spotlight, and was one of the hotter tickets of the exhibition with people rushing to sign up as soon as the doors opened. I had a chance to speak with Director Scott Berman, Polyphonic Spree Founder Tim Delaughter, and Producer Ryan Hartsell about the process of putting this dome experience together. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

Web developer Pete Adams created seven different really cool WebXR worlds for his songs featured in the A NUMBER FROM THE GHOST experience. His music was really great to listen to as I explored his abstract open worlds that were being modulated by different three.js effects. It's tough going to make it as an independent musician today, and so Adams was thrilled to take part in SXSW to feature his intersection between art and technology. These experiences also led to him being commissioned by HTC's VIVERSE to continue to develop these WebXR musical immersive experiences for their platform. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

Tenderclaws debuted their first piece in competition at SXSW with a short called FACE JUMPING, which was a surreal, seemingly open world experience with a number of interactive experiments leveraging eye tracking in novel ways. Tenderclaws has consistently pushed the edges of locomotion in everyone of their interactive narratives, and FACE JUMPING is no exception. If you lock eyes with another character for long enough, and you'll have an opportunity to swap perspectives with them, which allows you to progress through various different vignettes. There's a deeply poetic story that's unfolding, but I found that I needed a lot of decoding of the dream logic, metaphors, and allegories within my conversation with Samantha Gorman and Danny Cannizzaro. But it's the type of experience that I wanted to play again and again to continue to explore this world, and all of the novel eye tracking experiments that I missed. FACE JUMPING was my second favorite piece of the festival, and it ended up winning the Audience Award for the SXSW XR Experience Competition, and it was also one of the hottest tickets during the festival. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

IN THE CURRENT OF BEING is a powerfully-told story about electroshock conversion therapy using haptics, mixed reality, and a free-flowing dream logic structure paired with a documentary interview of a survivor. It was a deeply moving experience, and won the new Agog Social Impact Award at SXSW (more on that below). The director is BODY OF MINE's Cameron Kostopolous, who continues exploring embodied storytelling about a very timely topic. There were a handful of politically-themed pieces this year, and this was particularly prescient considering that the Supreme Court announced during SXSW that it would hear arguments about Chiles v. Salazar that challenges the constitutionality of Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy. Kostopolous is telling the story of trauma from conversion therapy, and hopes to be a part of an impact campaign that bans conversion therapy in at least one state. However this may be impossible if the Supreme Court declares conversion therapists a free speech right, even if there's little evidence that shows any merit that conversion therapy even works and is considered by Kostopolous to be a form of torture. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

There is a six-month exhibition titled "Other Worlds Are Possible" featuring a retrospective of a dozen different immersive storytelling pieces that will shown at the Le Pavillion in Nemur, Belgium from March 22 to September 21, 2025. The exhibition was curated by independent immersive curator Ana Brzezińska, and will also feature other AR pieces, screen-based work, but also an exhibit detailing a brief history and evolution of immersive art and immersive storytelling from different design disciplines. I had a chance to catch up with Brzezińska to get a bit more context on her design intention for this exhibition, to talk about the current state of immersive art and storytelling, as well as her current focus on brining this work to traditional cultural institutions that are reaching out to mainstream audiences. Here's a list of different immersive storytelling pieces that will be featured over the next sixth months (with links to my Voices of VR podcast interviews with the creators). NOTES ON BLINDNESS (2016) SPHERES (2017) BATTLESCAR (2018) GLOOMY EYES (2019) TRAVELING WHILE BLACK (2019) THE HANGMAN AT HOME (2020) GOLIATH: PLAYING WITH REALITY (2021) PLANET CITY (2022) PLASTISAPIENS (2022) EVOLVER (2022) FROM THE MAIN SQUARE (2022) ALL THAT REMAINS (2022) OVER THE RAINBOW (2023) This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

The SXSW XR Experience Selection runs from March 9-11 and contains 15 pieces in competition and 16 pieces in the spotlight, and I had a chance to chat with SXSW's XR programmer Blake Kammerdiener about each of these pieces. He provides some highlights from the XR Track Sessions at SXSW, and also mentions that there is an immersive piece called NOWISWHENWEARE (the stars) that is showing on March 11th & 12th. See down below for some more links to different SXSW events. Here is a list of the XR experiences being shown at SXSW, and I will update this post as I post my Voices of VR podcast interviews as I've featured a dozen projects in my previous coverage. UPDATE (March 29, 2025): I've now added links to all of my subsequent coverage at SXSW down below. And be sure to check out this Linked article: Recap of All SXSW XR Experiences Including Voices of VR Podcast Interviews with Every Artist. SXSW XR Experience Competition [Overview of all of the SXSW 2025 XR Experience Program] - #1529: SXSW 2025 XR Experience Selection Sneak Peak with Programmer Blake Kammerdiener 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre - #1548: 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre Uses Phone-Based AR to Volumetrically Tell a Forgotten History Any War Any Enemy - #1490: “Any War Any Enemy” is a Beautiful Anti-War, Immersive Poem About Nuclear Annihilation Cosmos in Focus - #1554: Cosmos in Focus Contextualizes James Webb Telescope Images in Educational Immersive Planetarium Experience Currents - #1556: Currents Boldly Defines a New Era of DIY 180-Degree Immersive Filmmaking with a Kit Under $5k Face Jumping - #1532: Tenderclaws' "Face Jumping" Explores the Frontiers of Eye-Tracked Locomotion in Poetically Surreal Short Honey Fungus - #1549: Honey Fungus Cultivates Intimacy with Nature through Embodied Actions Inspired by Fungi and Queer Ecology In the Current of Being - #1531: In the Current of Being Uses Immersive Haptics to Tell the Story of Electroshock Conversation Therapy Proof As If Proof Were Needed - #1543: Proof As If Proof Were Needed Enables Audiences to Collaboratively Edit Video Feeds via Embodied Movements Reflections of Little Red Dot - #1539: Wandering in Open World Doc Archives in Mixed Reality with SXSW XR Jury Prize Winner "Reflections of Little Red Dot" Shelter - #1545: Shelter Observational 360 Documentary Shows Intimate Side of War via Ukrainian Citizen Bomb Shelters [The Choice Chapter 1] - #1075: Stereoscopic Compositing Innovations & “The Choice” Interactive Documentary Exploring Reproductive Rights in Texas The Choice - Chapters 2 and 3 - #1547: Simulating One-on-One Conversations about Abortion Experiences to Change Minds with "The Choice - Chapters 2 & 3" The Last Practice - #1542: Exploring the Paradox of Narratively Critiquing AI While Also Using AI to Make "The Last Practice" The Secret Life of Monsters - The Gateway Experience - #1538: Mixed Reality Calibration Innovations Hidden within "The Secret Life of Monsters: The Gateway Experience" Traces: The Grief Processor - #1544: Traces: The Grief Processor Immersive Documentary Invites Groups to Learn About Grief Ways of Knowing: A Navajo Nuclear History - #1546: How Indigenous Storytelling is Changing Non-Proliferation Narratives in "Ways of Knowing: A Navajo Nuclear History" SXSW XR Experience Spotlight Address Unknown: Fukushima Now - #1438: Honoring the Memory of Abandoned Ghost Towns with “Address Unknown: Fukushima Now” All I Know About Teacher Li - #1452: Immersive Documentary about Chinese Censorship “All I Know About Teacher Li” Tops Venice Immersive Audience Favorites Survey Ancestors - #1507: From Selfies to Virtual Offspring, “Ancestors” Turns Strangers into Family and Intergenerational Speculative Futures Anouschka - #1334: “Anouschka” Wins IDFA DocLab Digital Storytelling Award with AR Narrative Game about Cultural Heritage [Oyrza from DocLab 2024, but also some more discussion about Anouschka] - #1540: Hacking...

The Theater application for the Apple Vision Pro by Sandwich Vision launched in June 2024 with the spatial livestreaming of John Gruber's live interview of Apple Executives at WWDC. They have been collaborating with independent producers of spatial video to distribute rentals and purchases of immersive content spanning across stereoscopic 180-videos to educational planetarium content to more experimental dome content as well as stereoscopic captures of live music performances (I can highly recommend checking out Fungi: Web of Life by K2 Studios). Users can also connect their private collections of movies via Plex Media Servers to enjoy their own private movie collection in a virtual home theater experience with a number of different theater options. They're also currently implementing social features, and may start having live screenings of classic movies with potential collaborations with independent movie theaters. I had a chance to catch up with Sandwich Vision co-founder Adam Lisagor to hear a bit more about his journey into the XR space, how he's blended storytelling and technology throughout his career, as well as his hopes for what might be a new renaissance of spatial video content given Apple's emphasis of on 180-degree spatial video rather than the VR filmmaking era of 360-degree videos. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

Lovesick is a narrative game featuring a character-driven story of a bank on the brink of collapse that faces a series of supernatural events that they must escape from. It features a lot of escape room and puzzle mechanics that are mixed with embodied gameplay, but at the heart it's about the relationship between these four different band members in what I found to be a real gem of a story with a payoff ending that made it worth the journey. I had a chance to sit down with director and co-writer Corey Warning from Rose-City Games to get a bit more context for how Lovesick came about catalyzed by some funding from Meta, their iterative design process along the way that was centered and driven by the story they wanted to tell, as well as their hope to bring some narrative-driven content and indie spirit to the VR ecosystem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAb_7fewd6c This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

In a series of posts from February 8th to 11th, open source developer Matthieu Bucchianeri started making allegations that Meta's OVRPlugin is blocking non-Meta OpenXR runtimes, thereby undermining the open and interoperable spirit of OpenXR. He claims that "the OVRPlugin takes intentional precautions to exclude non-Meta platforms. This means that XR content developed with OVRPlugin will only work with Quest Link, and it will not work with any other runtime." Bucchianeri's allegation is that if a PCVR game includes Meta's OVRPlugin as their OpenXR middleware and doesn't implement the counter-blocking measures that he details, then PCVR users will only be able to use a Quest headset with Quest Link while other non-Meta headsets like "Pimax, Pico, Varjo, Vive" will be blocked, even if they have conformant OpenXR runtimes. Bucchianeri has validated these blocking counter-measures, and he says, "as proven with many applications using OVRPlugin with counter-measures enabled, these applications can run on a conformant OpenXR implementation." Not very many XR developers are willing to speak about these issues on the record, but I did manage to record a Voices of VR podcast interview with Virtual Desktop's Guy Godin who was able to independently corroborate many of the core allegations from Bucchianeri. Godin collaborated with Bucchianeri on the Virtual Desktop OpenXR (VDXR) runtime, but has also been receiving many complaints from PCVR users around Meta's OpenXR non-compliance issues, especially with games that launch both on Quest and PCVR and use Meta's OVRPlugin. Godin told me that games will work fine natively on the Quest, but any non-Quest headsets or if they aren't using Quest Link will be blocked on the PCVR version, unless the developer specifically implements anti-blocking counter-measures detailed by Bucchianeri in his technical write-up. It appears as though OpenXR conformance from the Khronos Group only pertains to the actual OpenXR runtimes on the hardware, but headset manufacturers are able to create their own SDK plug-in middleware that interfaces with OpenXR that doesn't have the same conformance requirements. It appears as though Meta is able to technically maintain their OpenXR runtime conformant status because it does not apply to their OVRPlugin middleware SDK solution, and Bucchianeri is claiming that Meta is undermining the normative standards of interoperability by not following the best practices from the Khronos Group. He says, "For the past several years, Khronos has come up with best practices and solutions to develop OpenXR applications and maximize cross-vendor and cross-platform interoperability. Khronos has asked XR developers all over the world to follow these best practices, however - Meta - the largest vendor in Khronos is refusing to follow these best practices." Bucchianeri is also claiming to have had private communications with Meta confirming that these were deliberate and intentional changes. He says, "This is not an accident: this concern was reported to Meta early in 2024 via official means in the Khronos group. Meta acknowledged purposedly blocking other platforms from running OpenXR content at that time." I was able to confirm in my discussion with Guy Godwin in this Voices of VR podcast episode that he also believes that these were deliberate and intentional changes to undermine the spirit of OpenXR. Part of why Bucchianeri was blowing the whistle is because the Khronos Group had not been taking any action against Meta. He describes Meta's actions as "reverting many of the improvements to the developers and users ecosystem that Khronos has spent time, money, energy into solving for the past 7 years." He says, "Unfortunately, since 2024, Khronos has refused to take actions to stop Meta’s OVRPlugin destructive initiative towards the PCVR ecosystem. By not taking any actions to resolve the issues created by Meta’s OVRPlugin, Khronos is sending the message that OpenXR is no lo...

Niantic launched their Into the Scaniverse application on Quest 3 on February 26th, 2025 that features over 50,000 Gaussian Spats from 120 different countries. They originally launched the WebXR version on December 10th, 2024 at IntoTheScaniverse.com, which was built using Niantic Studio (be sure to check out their comprehensive history of Gaussian Splats by Kirsten M. Johnson released at the same time). Users can use the Scaniverse mobile app on Android or iOS to capture, render, geotag, and upload their own Gaussian Splats onto the Into the Scaniverse mapps that can be viewed on either mobile phone or XR devices. I had a chance to speak more about Into the Scaniverse with Joel Udwin, who is Niantic's Director of Product for Niantic's AR, Research, Developer Platforms, and Scaniverse. Gaussian Splats are only about 1 year and a half old as the original "3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering" paper was presented at SIGGRAPH in August 2023, but it represents a new rendering pipeline for volumetrically captured content. Niantic's Into the Scaniverse apps are able to process and render these splats locally on the phone or Quest devices, and they have a lot of plans for how they will continue to utilize and develop this as a core part of their technology infrastructure and enabling new mixed reality applications. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR51MrAtUM4 This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

HTC has launched Viverse platform that is aiming to become the YouTube of 3D Content. It's a platform that hosts 3D content and worlds built on PlayCanvas as well as many other open source technologies like WebXR, WebGPU, and VRM. It is sort of like a mix between VRChat with social worlds, 3D web crypto-based metaverse worlds, but also with some more enterprise embedding features as well. It's exciting to see this shift towards building out the open and interoperable metaverse, but in the context of this hybrid walled garden context that is built using open web technology stacks. It is also a hybrid in another way in that it is mostly consumer-facing but also has enterprise use cases like privately embedding of 3D content. I interviewed HTC's Andranik Aslanyan about the new VIVERSE platform, how they recruited over a hundred XR and WebXR developers to seed the content, and how VIVERSE fits into their overall strategy. I get some clarifications on the Android XR non-exclusive IP acquisition, and how VIVERSE fits into where HTC will be heading now that we're coming up on 10 years the HTC Vive was announced on March 1, 2014. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

The latest Polys Ombudsperson of the Year is Ingrid Kopp, and previous winners Brittan Heller, Michaela Montagna, and myself gathered again on December 8 2024 to reflect on the current state of the XR industry as well as the specific ethical concerns about the intersection between XR and AI. We also speak about some of the power of storytelling to unpack some of these moral dilemmas, as well as tech policy in the context of the existing political climate, but also some of the broader and general trends of the XR industry. In my takeaways at the end, I also elaborate on the leaked memo from Meta CTO Andrew "Boz" Bosworth saying "We need to drive sales, retention, and engagement across the board but especially in MR. And Horizon Worlds on mobile absolutely has to break out for our long term plans to have a chance. If you don't feel the weight of history on you then you aren't paying attention. This year likely determines whether this entire effort will go down as the work of visionaries or a legendary misadventure." A lot of their Meta's commitment to XR seems to be directly tethered to the success or failure of their own first-party app. Zuckerberg's AR/VR Strategy memo from 2014 leaked to TechCrunch by Blake Harris now seems particularly prescient: "for now keep in mind that we need to succeed in building both a major platform and key apps to improve our strategic position on the next platform. If we only build key apps but not the platform, we will remain in our current position. If we only build the platform but not the key apps, we may be in a worse position." Zuckerberg later elaborates that apps and experiences are their top priority in XR: "I think you can divide the ecosystem into three major parts: apps / experiences, platform services and hardware / systems. In my vision of ubiquitous VR / AR, these are listed in order of importance." As time has passed, it's become more and more clear that the success of Meta's Horizon worlds may be directly tethered to Meta's overall commitment to the XR industry. Just yesterday, Meta announced a $50 million dollar fund for Meta Horizon World creators, with special awards for mobile: "By investing in mobile content, we can reach a lot of new people who don’t yet own a Quest headset and ultimately grow the pie for everyone. That’s why, as part of our $50 million Creator Fund for creators of mobile and MR worlds, we’re also announcing our first creator competition of the year with a focus on mobile." UploadVR did a really great follow-up report about "From Quest To Horizon: How Meta's Shifting Priorities Are Affecting Developers" that includes many anonymous statements from XR developers talking about the impact of Meta's shifting priorities. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

Oliver Kadel's 1618 Digital specializes in spatial audio sound design and engineering across linear immersive storytelling and interactive immersive experiences. Kadel also co-hosts The Immersive Audio Podcast with Monica Bolles, and I was recently featured in episode #109. I sat down with Kadel to get a survey of some of the spatial audio formats and production pipelines ranging from 3rd order ambisonics, object-oriented audio in game engines, working with the audio formats for Apple Immersive Video, Dolby Atmos, MPEG-H Audio, and emerging open standards like the Immersive Audio Model & Format (IAMF), which is "an audio container specification designed to revolutionize immersive audio experiences across a wide range of applications, including streaming, gaming, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and traditional broadcasting." We talk about some of his favorite immersive audio productions, his process of getting a Ph.D. studying the impact of spatial audio on cognitive load, and some of the future trends of spatial audio.

The Khronos Group is working on a new open standard tentatively called the glTF External Reference Format (or glTFx for short), which will allow users to add multiple glTF assets to a single scene. This used to be called the "glTF Experience Format (glXF)," and the final name is still being finalized. This will enable new capabilities that are not possible by using glTF itself to contain other glTF assets, which includes is level-of-detail (LoD) management, asset-based lighting Management, and billboarding. The Khronos Group continues to translate the core functionality of game engines into various open standards, and are also working towards finalizing glTF extensions for interactivity as well as for physics. I did a deep dive with Khronos 3D Formats Working Group Chairman Alexey Medvedev (AR Tech Lead at Meta/Facebook), and 3D Formats Working Group Vice Chairman Dan Frith (Chief Creative Officer at London Dynamics) to unpack all of the latest news about glTF and glTF External Reference Format. . This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I dig into my archives to unpack the one-on-one, immersive theatre piece that I saw online back in 2021 called TM that used a Socratic dialectic to interrogate you as you're going through a process of joining an imaginary cult. I spoke with Ontroerend Goed's artistic director Alexander Devriendt to get a lot more context for how he designs immersive theatre productions for folks who typically don't like immersive theatre. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

VR filmmakers Joe Hunting and Max Willson are premiering their short documentary film The Reality of Hope at the Sundance film festival this week (online tickets are still available here from Jan 30 to Feb 2 and it'll also be available later this year on Documentary+). Hunting's previous film We Met in Virtual Reality also premiered at Sundance in 2022 and got picked up by HBO, and he's continuing to document very human stories that are rooted within the context of virtual culture. The Reality of Hope is shot both in VRChat and physical reality as it tells the beautiful and inspiring story of Photographotter traveling across the world to donate a kidney to his friend Hiyu, who he met within the furry community in VR. Hiyu is a world builder and avatar creator who has been a part of the team that has created some truly spectacular worlds as a part of the Furality conference (See the full list of worlds listed down below). Facing kidney failure, Hiyu turned to social media asking for help seeking a donor, which caught Photographotter's attention who then privately reached out. Photographotter documented the ups and downs of his inner journey in a VTuber video blog series, and The Reality of Hope fills in a lot of the gaps for the broader Furality community, the worlds that Hiyu has built, and the nuances of their friendship in hospitals of Stockholm, Sweden as the organ donor process requires a three-month commitment. The Reality of Hope is a beautifully-told story that shows the power of VR to forge deep and meaningful connections that proved to be literally life-saving. VRChat Worlds featured in The Reality of Hope Furality Aqua: The Oceans of Luma by Furality Sylva: Treehouse Village at Night by Furality Luma: Crystal Forest by Furality Sylva: Lahaina Springs by Furality Umbra: Village of Umbra by Furality (video) Furality˸ F․Y․N․N․'s Gym by Furality VR Yoga by Castiel先生 Exoplanet Journey by Niko* Tanuki Tunesǃ - タヌキトゥーンズ by Juno Tanuki Photographotters House V2 - by Photographotter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVMSZ30_FMY This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

If it were up to Agnes Callard, she would be having a lot more philosophical encounters in her life. But conversational norms lean towards agreeability, surface-level interactions, and, in some contexts, a polarizing battlefield of ideologies that is near impossible to penetrate. Her preference is for the Socratic Method of inquiry that requires participants to embody specific roles (believing truths vs avoiding falsehoods), with specific rules to follow, and committing to the possibility of having one's beliefs or skepticism radically transformed. This allows for the prospect of overcoming blind spots and co-creating knowledge in a collaborative fashion where one thinks with someone rather than thinking for someone. Socratic inquiry doesn't just happen, so Callard wrote a book called Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life explaining the process in great detail. She even created an entirely new ethical framework arguing that striving for knowledge is a moral imperative per Socrates' aphorism "the unexamined life is not worth living." Callard argues in her book that while achieving knowledge requires following the two rules of believing truths and avoiding falsehoods, it's impossible for one person to follow both rules simultaneously. To do so requires a collaborative and dialectical process like the Socratic Method. She cites William James' 1896 The Will to Believe as the source of the insight that believing truths and avoiding falsehoods are apparently two different mutually-exclusive algorithms: We must know the truth; and we must avoiderror,—these are our first and great commandments as would-be knowers; but they are not two ways of stating an identical commandment, they are two separable laws. James, W. (1907). The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. page 17. Longmans Green and Co. For a quick 5-minute overview on why believing truths and avoiding falsehoods are two separate algorithms requiring a dialectical process, check out this short 5-minute video where Callard explains the crux of the Socratic Method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yjjYq-Z-z0 It's not immediately obvious to me that the path towards knowledge requires believing truths and avoiding falsehoods, or that it would be impossible for one person to commit to both. If Callard is right, the path towards knowledge requires a collaborative and deliberative process similar to the path towards justice where the prosecution prosecutes the guilty and the defense acquits the innocent. Once again, a lawyer cannot represent both sides, however, in this instance, the debate is mediated by a judge with an independent jury deciding the verdict. Callard contends that pure Socratic Inquiry needs no moderator as long as both parties are open-minded enough to have their blind spots challenged and potentially be radically transformed. What it does require is a good faith commitment to work collaboratively with a certain amount of epistemic humility. This underlying dialectical nature of knowledge applies in many and varied contexts, especially around conversations focusing on "What is Truth?" or "What is Reality?" Close listeners to the Voices of VR podcast have heard me mention this tension between "believing truths" vs "avoiding falsehoods" in at least a dozen podcasts going back to November 2019 (#846, 860, 912, 927, 932, 959, 971, 1055, 1092, 1144, 1147, & 1353). Dialectical polarities are a core pillar of my experiential design framework, and I've been seeing more immersive stories and experiences use the principles of the Socratic Method as a core mechanic. See my interviews about Horizon (one-on-one Socratic dialogue with an immersive theatre actor within a speculative futures context), Mandala (group Socratic dialectic about philosophical ideas), and The Collider (asymmetrical two-person experience about power and boundaries where one person embodies power-over dynamics with the other embodying power-unde...

I interviewed producer Dan Tucker at IDFA DocLab 2024 about the lessons learned from touring In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats across 20 different venues over the past couple of years. See the transcript down below for more context on our conversation." See more context in the rough transcript below. This is the last episode from my series of interviews from IDFA DocLab 2024. You can see all of the interviews in the list below: #1492: IDFA DocLab Curators Preview 2024 Slate of AI & XR Immersive Documentaries #1493: "About a Hero" IDFA Opening Night Doc Blends Realities, Written by AI Trained on Werner Herzog Corpus #1495: Getting Roasted by Unfiltered "AI & Me" Photobooth Installation #1496: Using GenAI to Recreate Erased Family Photos with "Burn From Absence" 4-Channel Video #1497: Experimental VR Doc "Rapture II: Portal" Blends Hypnotic Audio with Spatial Scan of War-Abandoned Home #1498: Immersive Installation Frames Provocative "Töngö Sondi" Animation on Langauge, Censorship, & Identity #1499: From Interactive Biohacking Lecture to Speakeasy with "Drinking Brecht: An Automated Laboratory Performance" #1500: Sharing Indigenous Knowledge with AR on 360 Video and Embodied Rituals in "Ancestral Secrets VR" #1501: Roaming as Resistance: "Entropic Fields of Displacement" wins DocLab Digital Storytelling Award #1502: Candid Audio Clips Juxtaposed with Poetic GenAI Video in "Sincerely Victor Pike" #1503: "The Liminal" Spatial Audio Installation Blends Audio Doc with Specualtive Arab Futurism #1504: Open World, GenAI Podcast "Drift" Reflects on Climate Change from 500 Years in the Future #1505: Immersive Journalist Features Volumetric Sexual Harrassment Testimonies in "Walking Alone, Text You When I'm Home" #1506: Going on a Virtual Date in "ROAMance" that Generates Novel Encounters with Defamiliarization #1507: From Selfies to Virtual Offspring, "Ancestors" Turns Strangers into Family and Intergenerational Speculative Futures #1508: Virtual Architecture Vibes Part 1: "Limbotopia" VR & Dome at Film Gate Interactive #1509: Virtual Architecture Vibes Part 2: "Limbophobia" VR & Dome at IDFA DocLab #1510: Poetic VR Exploration of Iranian Protest Blindings in "Speechless Witness of a Wandering Tree" #1511: Cultivating Virtual LGBTQIA+ Safe Spaces in VRChat with "Dollhouse for Queer Imaginaries" #1512: DocLab Immersive Non-Fiction Winner "Me, A Depiction" Performance Installation Confronts Objectifying Gaze #1513: From Daily News to GenAI Irish Sean-nós Songs in "You Can Sing Me on My Way" Audio Installation #1514: Creating GenAI Flower Ecosystem with "Future Botanica" AR App #1515: VR Researcher Julia Scott-Stevenson on Embodiment in Story & Why Docs are Perfect to Explore AI #1516: Myriam Achard on Phi Studio's Expansion into LBE Distribution & the Fusion of Immersive Art at Phi Contemporary #1517: LBE Lessons Learned from 20-Venue Tour of "In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats" with Producer Dan Tucker This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Myriam Achard about the new distribution arm of Phi Studio (as of now there is still no official name yet) as well as the exciting new Phi Contemporary set to open in 2028 that will be fusing together the contemporary art world with the immersive art, storytelling, and technology worlds that the Phi Centre have been curating. See the transcript down below for more context on our conversation. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed VR researcher Julia Scott Stevenson at IDFA DocLab 2024 about her research into embodiment and AI within the context of immersive stories as well as her work around climate change. See the transcript down below for more context on our conversation. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed co-directors Marcel van Brakel and Hazal Ertürkan about Future Botanica that showed at IDFA DocLab 2024. See the transcript down below for more context on our conversation. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed director Seán Hannan about You Can Sing Me on My Way that showed at IDFA DocLab 2024. See the transcript down below for more context on our conversation. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed director Lisa Schamlé about Me, A Depiction that showed at IDFA DocLab 2024. See the transcript down below for more context on our conversation. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality