Voices of VR Podcast – Designing for Virtual Reality

I've spoken to Whitehead scholar Matt Segall a couple of times before, and I was really keen to catch up with him to hear his process-relational and process philosophical takes on AI, intelligence and consciousness. I was responding to a piece he recently wrote titled " The Philosophical Implications of Artificial Intelligence" (full citation below), and it's helped me to ground the conversation about AI that sometimes feels like it easily gets untethered from reality, or just collapses the complexity of humans down into computational machines. There's a lot of more pernicious metaphors that reductive materialists have about humans are, and so this conversation helps to recenter the AI Hyped conversations into a much more process-relational context. Segall, M.D. (2025). The Philosophical Implications of Artificial Intelligence. In: Hoffmann, C.H., Bansal, D. (eds) AI Ethics in Practice. Integrated Science, vol 35. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-87023-1_8

I spoke with the curators of Tribeca Immersive 2025 Jazia Hammoudi and Casey Baltes to unpack the 11 impact project that are being feature in this year's selection. We also talk about Tribeca's new collaboration with Onassis ONX and Agog, how the selection process has changed over the years. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I spoke with Raindance Immersive curators Mária Rakušanová, Joe Hunting, Fangs about the 2025 selection of projects across 8 different categories. Tune in to get all of the latest tips from this year's selection that is mostly happening on social VR platforms including VRChat, Resonite, and Orion Drift. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I spoke with producer Victor Agulhon of Targo Stories about their collaboration with TIME Studios to produce D-Day: The Camera Soldier, which he calls the most technologically advance immersive documentary produced up to this point. They took footage from D-Day and spatialized it in a number of different ways, and really pushed the frontiers of innovation for spatial storytelling. It released on the Apple Vision Pro last Tuesday, and it's definitely a project that you should check out if you have access to an AVP. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

The Portland Art Museum Center for an Untold Tomorrow (PAM CUT) has acquired the Tomorrow Theater in South East Portland, and is curating 25 unique events a month and over 250 unique events a year. Most of the experiences are grounded within the cinematic tradition, but there are usually ways that they are adding more levels of participation, community-building, and immersion. Portland Art Museum will be expanding in November to add even more immersive art and immersive storytelling programming as a part of their Plus Plus month-long festival, and the Tomorrow Theater is serving to onboard Portland audiences into the beginning steps of more immersive, experiential, participatory, and social types of entertainment. I had a chance to speak with director Amy Dotson to get a lot more context of how PAM CUT came about, and their vision for where they want to take it in the future. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

We are in the middle of a hype cycle peak around AI as there are a lot of hyperbolic claims being made about the capabilities and performance of large-language models (LLMs). Computational Linguist Emily M. Bender and Sociologist Alex Hanna have been writing academic papers about the limitations of LLMs, as well as some of the more pernicious aspects of benchmark culture in machine learning, as well as documenting some of the many environmental, labor, and human rights harms from both the creation and deployment of these LLMs. Their book The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want comprehensively deconstructs the many of the false promises of AI, the playbook for AI Hype, and the underlying dynamics of how AI is an automation technology designed to consolidate power. Their book unpacks so many vital parts of the Science and Technology Studies narrative around AI including: How big technology companies have been using AI as a marketing term to describe disparate technologies that have many limitations How we anthropomorphize AI tech from our concepts of intelligence How AI Boosting companies are devaluing what it means to be human in order to promote AI technology How AI Boosters and AI Doomers are two sides of the same coin of assuming that AI is all-powerful and completely inevitable How many of the harms and costs associated with the technology are often out-of-sight and out-of-mind. This book takes a critical look at these so-called AI technologies, deconstructs the language that we use as we talk about these automating technologies, breaks down the hype playbook of Big Tech, restores the relational quality of human intelligence that is often collapsed by AI. It also provides some really helpful questions to ask in order to interrogate the hyperbolic claims that we're hearing from AI boosters. We talk about all of this and more on today's episode, and I have a feeling that this is an episode that I'll be referring back to often. This is also the 100th Voices of VR podcast episode that explores the intersection of AI within the context of XR, and I expect to continue to cover how folks in the XR industry are using AI. Being in right relationship to every aspect of the economic, ethical & moral, social, labor, legal, and property rights dimensions of AI technologies is still an aspirational position. It's not impossible, but it is also not easy. But this conversation helps to frame a lot of the deeper questions that I will continue to have about AI. And Bender and Hanna also provide a lot of clues to the red flags of AI Hype, but also some of the core questions to ask that help to orient around these deeper ethical questions around AI. I've also been editing unpublished and vaulted episodes of the Voices of AI that I did with AI researchers at the International Joint Conference of Artificial Intelligence that I did back in 2016 and 2018 (as well as a couple of other conferences), and I'm hoping to relaunch the Voices of AI later this summer to look back at what researchers were saying about AI 7-9 years ago to give some important historical context that's often collapsed within the current days of AI Hype (SPOILER ALERT: this is not the first nor the last hype cycle that AI will have). I'll also be engaging within a Socratic Style Debate where I'll be mostly arguing critically against AI on the last day of AWE (Thursday, June 12th, 2:45p) after the Expo has closed down, and before the final session. So come check out a live debate with a couple of AI Boosters and an AI Doomer. Also look for an interview that I just recorded with Process Philosopher Matt Segall diving more into a Process-Relational Philosophy perspective on AI, intelligence, and consciousness coming here soon. Segall and I are going to explore an elemental approach to intelligence, which is based upon concepts that I explore in my elemental theory of presence talk. Intelligence, privacy,

The Creature label features a lot of really innovative VR and MR games with rich and innovative gameplay mechanics, and they just featured three new games, a new DLC pack, and lots of updates about the games in a half-hour Creature Feature gaming showcase hosted on IGN. I had a chance to catch up with Creature CEO and Creative Director Doug North Cook to unpack all of the different announcements as well as do a bit of vibe check on the state of the VR industry (and responds a bit to Chris Pruett's GDC talk on Meta and the shifting gaming ecosystem). Announcement of Adepts Arena game Laser Dance update of entering into Early Access in Fall Thrasher is coming to Steam Deck New The Light Brigade mixed reality trailer Neat Corp recap with Budget Cuts Ultimate Neat Corp recap Garden of the Sea on Switch and Steam Deck Announcement of Crossings with a Steam Next Fest demo on June 9th Wordbound Teaser Prison Boss Prohibition launches on July 10, 2025 Compass shout out at the end of the Creature Feature of Trebuchet Announcement of Maestro DLC of Duel of the Fates from Star Wars Episode #1 New Starship Home accolades trailer Equip soundtrack for Starship Home coming to 100% Electronica label Creature Feature Bundle launches today with a 30% discount featuring Maestro, The Light Brigade, Fujii, Budget Cuts Ultimate, Garden of the Sea and Prison Boss VR Horseshoes Hotdogs and Hand Grenades developer Anton Hand says, "It's tough finishing stuff." No additional context, but could the full release of H3VR 1.0 be coming soon? And/or a future Creature collaboration? Sidequest Indie Spotlight Summer 2025 launches on YouTube We Are One shout out. Announcement of Deadly Delivery entering a closed beta period Here is the Creature Feature 2025 Summer Showcase that premiered on the IGN YouTube channel today at 9a: https://www.youtube.com/live/OEnj5u_Wht0?t=1765s This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

NOTE: This sponsored episode was produced by Kent Bye in partnership with PHI and participation from Agog: Immersive Media Institute and immersive artist Peter Burr. PHI and Agog: Immersive Media Institute are collaborating on the PHI Immersive: XR for Impact residency program that will be running for four weeks from March 2 to 27, 2026 in Montreal, Canada. It was first announced on March 6th, and it's open to "artists, groups, or collectives residing in North America (including Canada, the United States, Mexico, Greenland, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, and Bermuda)." The submission deadline is June 24th, 2025 (11:59 EDT), and there are a couple of information sessions coming up next week on Tuesday, May 13th (French) and Thursday, May 15th (English), and you can find the Zoom links on the application page (or video recordings if it's after May 15th). I think this is a very unique opportunity that will be of interest to the Voices of VR podcast audience since the selected artist(s) will be invited to spend a month collaborating with PHI Studio over four weeks towards developing an initial prototype. Here's how they describe it: Focusing specifically on the development phase of a project over the course of four weeks, the selected artist(s), group, or collective will collaborate with PHI Studio experts to conceptualize, plan, and prototype an immersive artwork. The program provides the selected project with personalized support, workspace, the possibility to connect with a community partner and targeted resources to refine the concept, create prototypes, and prepare for potential production. I had a chance to catch up with Myriam Archard, Chief New Media Partnership and PR at PHI, Amy Seidenwurm, Chief of Programs and Strategy at Agog, as well as Peter Burr, who was the immersive artist selected for the 2025 edition of the PHI Immersive residency. We talk about the collaboration between PHI and Agog, which is bringing a specific impact focus on "transforming narratives through activism, contemporary challenges, and social good." We elaborate a bit more about what it means to use XR technologies and immersive storytelling to empower changemakers. We also talk about best practices and things to avoid in a pitch (be sure to read closely what the submission guidelines are), and a lot of general advice for aspiring immersive artists navigating how to inspire change and provide opportunities to make a positive difference on the many different challenges facing us today. We also cover a lot of other logistics of the PHI Immersive: XR for Impact residency, including Burr's personal reflections on what the experience was like. Agog also is interested in supporting other immersive residencies, and perhaps starting some of their own residency programs, and so this collaboration with PHI may be an indication for the types of future work that they are looking to support. Again, the deadline is June 24th, 2025 (11:59p EDT), and be sure to check out the information session on May 13th at 11am EDT for French speakers, and May 15th at 11am EDT for English speakers. You can tune in to the podcast or check out the transcript down below for more details.

Walkabout Mini Golf is really an incredible accomplishment of VR design with its fusion of worldbuilding, compelling physics-based gameplay, the unique social dynamics and community it's able to cultivate, and over 4 1/2 years of consistent DLC courses every 8 weeks or so. They have launched 33 total courses, and just recently announced that they're bumping the price by $10 and adding 6 DLC courses into the base game so that is now 14 courses for $24.99. It's still an incredible deal, especially considering that there are still 19 DLC courses available, which has helped earn the #20 spot on Meta's best-selling Quest apps of all time. During my trip to SXSW, I had a chance to speak with the original solo developer of Walkabout Mini Golf, Lucas Martell, who has since grown the Mighty Coconut Studio team to 35 people. We talk about how their design process for courses starts with worldbuilding, but also how his script-writing background has helped to inform how they tell the story of each of these worlds through the evolution of game mechanics and shape language that each course is exploring. After I had a chance to interview Martell, I was given access to all 33 of the courses, which I have played through over the past week in order to provide a bit more context on what they've been able to accomplish with Walkabout Mini Golf. It's certainly an achievement within VR design that combines the best part of immersive worldbuilding, convincing gameplay, and compelling social dynamics that keeps players coming back again and again.Be sure to check out the table below which lists the timeline of the release of the 33 different courses that are now available. OrderCourse NameRelease DateCategory1.1Tourist TrapSep 24, 2020Classic1.1Cherry BlossomSep 24, 2020Classic1.1Seagull stacksSep 24, 2020Classic1.1Arizona ModernSep 24, 2020Classic5Original GothicNov 8, 2020Classic6Tethys StationMar 3, 2021Classic7Bogey's BonanzaJun 10, 2021Classic8Quixote ValleyOct 7, 2021Classic9Gardens of BabylonNov 18, 2021Lost Cities10Shangri-La (Added to Base Game)Dec 16, 2021Lost Cities11Sweetopia (Added to Base Game)Feb 17, 2022DLC12El DoradoJun 2, 2022Lost Cities13LabyrinthJul 28, 2022Licensed IP1420,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Added to Base Game)Sep 29, 2022Jules Verne15MystNov 15, 2022Licensed IP16AtlantisJan 26, 2023Lost Cities17Upside Town (Added to Base Game)Mar 9, 2023DLC18Temple at ZerzuraApr 20, 2023Lost Cities19Journey to the Center of the EarthJun 8, 2023Jules Verne20Laser Lair (Added to Base Game)Jul 20, 2023Evil Lair21Alfheim (Added to Base Game)Sep 7, 2023DLC22Widow's WalkaboutOct 19, 2023DLC23Meow WolfDec 7, 2023Licensed IP24Around the World in 80 DaysJan 18, 2024Jules Verne25Ice LairMar 7, 2024Evil Lair26VeniceApril 25, 2024DLC27Wallace & GromitJul 25, 2024Licensed IP28Mars GardensSep 10, 2024Original IP298-Bit LairOct 24, 2024Evil Lair30Holiday HideawayDec 5, 2024DLC31Viva Las ElvisJan 16, 2025Licensed IP32Mount OlympusMar 6, 2025DLC33Raptor CliffsMay 1, 2025DLC This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

asses.masses is a unique, 7-hour, live performance that uses video game logic to expand the narrative possibilities and social dramaturgy of experimental theater. With a single video game controller at the front of a movie theater with lights up so everyone can see each other, the audience must negotiate amongst themselves who will step up to play the next section of a narrative game that spans a wide range of different genres from 8-bit pixel art RPG representing the hyperreal to high-res, 3D open world walking simulators representing a fantasy idealized realm. The audience also has to negotiate how to make hundreds of collective decisions that come up in the game from dialogue tree options to which direction to to go to deciding which set of metaphoric political platform issues that should be prioritized for the ensemble cast of socialist Marxist donkeys. They lean upon the binge-watching culture to split the 7 to 8-hour run time into 10 total episodes split into 2-episode chunks that are broken up by 4 different intermissions where snacks and dinner are provided. Here's a description of the story that's told in this long-form format: The unemployed donkeys have one demand: the humans must surrender their machines and give all donkeys their jobs back. But revolution is never easy! asses.masses is a custom-made video game about labour, technophobia, and sharing the load of revolution, designed to be played from beginning to end in a live theatre. This is gaming as performance, an immersive, cheeky, and highly original work. Brave spectators take turns at the controller to lead the herd through a post-Industrial society, where asses are valued more for their hides than their potential. Confronting automation-driven job loss, nostalgia as a barrier to progress, and the role of technology in adaptation, we are encouraged to find space between the work that defines us and the play that frees us. asses.masses is Animal Farm meets Pokémon meets Final Fantasy, as exciting in form as it is in content. No previous gaming (or donkey) experience required. asses.masses is one of the more unique immersive experiences that I've had a chance to have, especially when it comes to mashing up social behaviors that stem from video game culture, but set within a live theatrical context. I saw asses.masses at PAM CUT (Portland Art Museum's Center for an Untold Tomorrow) here in Portland, OR on March 29th, and I had a chance to remotely catch up with the co-creators Patrick Blenkarn and Milton Lim to unpack their journey of blending video games into how stories are told in a live theatrical performance. We also explore how they're exploring new modes of social dramaturgy that leverage insights from couch co-op, live Twitch streams, and video game logic where part of the performance is automated through the video game itself, but it's augmented by the emergent social dynamics of the audience that end up reflecting main narrative themes of managing flows of power, community-building, collective decision-making, and in the case of our screening some actual revolt against an theater nerd/gamer audience member turned heel. Overall, the experience allowed the audience to exercise some muscles of social imagination beyond the Capitalist Realism baseline as elaborated by Mark Fisher's work, and there was a turn-taking between the more cathartic mode of Aristotelian drama and breaking the fourth wall of Brecht's distancing effect / alienation effect. The narrative was initially developed to serve a wide range of game-play mechanics in a live theater context, but the spaciousness of the extended run-time allowed them to explore many deeper philosophical, political, and economic topics that most stories do not have the time to get into. The ensemble cast of archetypal characters each have their own arc, and I found that the ending and epilogue really landed and stuck with me. If you have an opportunity to catch an upcoming scre...

Charlotte Mikkelborg is the series director of the Adventure series on Apple TV, which is shot on Apple Immersive Video and co-produced by Atlantic Studios (formerly Atlantic Productions) and Apple. I think it has the strongest storytelling released by Apple so far, and it also has some of the most innovative and cutting edge shots that really show the power of the 180-degree format of Apple Immersive Video. In this conversation, we cover Mikkelborg's 10-year journey into working with immersive formats starting with 360-degree video, multi-sensory VR, and most recently 180-degree video. We also talk about the emerging grammar of 180-degree filmmaking, and the introduction of close ups, which I feel like work sometimes and other times feels almost too close or can feel a bit uncanny or jarring when changing scales or results in warping or other distortions. We also talk about some of the behind-the-scenes insights about the Adventure series. One concerning thing that I noticed after watching all of the Apple Immersive Videos released so far is that many of these videos do not contain any credits for who worked on these projects. I did an audit of all 22 of the published Apple Immersive Videos, and I found that 14 of the 22 don't have any credits at all,. Most of these are by Apple Sentity LLC productions, which is presumably Apple's in-house production team. I found that 5 out of the 22 have partial credits, including the four episodes of the Adventure series as well as Man vs. Beast, which features DGA director Ryan Booth. And there are 3 out of the 22 Apple Immersive Videos that have full and complete credits including Submerged that features DGA director Edward Berger, and the Prehistoric Planet Immersive series, which is a co-production with Fairview Portals. See the table below for more information: It is deeply concerning to me that only 3 out of the 22 Apple Immersive Videos seemingly have full and complete credits. Apple did not provide any comment about why this is or why some of these pieces have no credits, why some have partial credits, and why some have full credits. It is nice to see at least some credits on the Adventure series, which is a co-production between Apple and Atlantic Studios (formerly Atlantic Productions), but they're only listing the director, executive producer, and key talent while all of the other key creative talent are not being credited. Atlantic Productions did not provide any official comment about why there are only partial credits, while a few other productions have full credits and many other productions have no credits. You can see find a partial a list of some of the Adventure series creative talent on IMDB, and episode 3 protagonist Ant Williams posted a partial list of credits on his Instagram announcement post. I was able to get some additional context from Mikkelborg about the credits situation, and it does sounds like the co-productions likely have a bit more leeway in dictating what types of credits are shown. While the Prehistoric Planet Immersive series co-produced by Fairview Portals series has full and complete credits, and the Adventure series by Atlantic Studios only has partial credits. The two Apple Sentity LLC productions that do have credits also happen to be directed by directors who are a part of the Director's Guild of America (DGA). The DGA has specific credits requirements, "For feature films, the Director's screen credit must be accorded on a separate card, which shall be the last title card appearing prior to principal photography. This credit shall be no less than 50% of the size of the displayed title of the motion picture, or of the largest size in which credit is accorded to any other person, whichever is greater." The rules may be different for immersive productions or emerging media projects, but the director credits for Submerged and Man vs Beast seem to both meet DGA's credits requirements for film.

Ant Williams is a freediving athlete featured in the third episode of The Adventure Series titled "Ice Dive" that's co-produced by Apple and Atlantic Studios (formerly Atlantic Productions). In the episode, Williams attempts to swim a world record distance 182 meters under ice, and I wanted to get some additional behind-the-scenes context on his experience as well as what it was like to have the most intense month of his life condensed down into a 15-minute Apple Immersive Video. Williams is a sports psychologist who wanted to put his theories into practice by taking what he calls "positive, calculated risk-taking challenges" that allow him to deal with overwhelming anxiety, and overcome his fears, uncertainty, and self-doubt. I also wanted to get some additional context on the production of the episode as Apple has otherwise been pretty tight-lipped about the series, launched with which launched with "Highlining" on the same day as the Apple Vision Pro launch on February 2, 2024. Apple Immersive Video is a different format than spatial video. Apple says "spatial videos are captured in 1080p at 30 frames per second in standard dynamic range," and these are what can be captured by either an iPhone or Apple Vision Pro, and they are displayed in a windowed frame where you see the stereoscopic effects. Apple describes Apple Immersive Video as "a remarkable storytelling format that leverages 3D video recorded in 8K with a 180-degree field of view and Spatial Audio to transport viewers to the center of the action." Apple Immersive Video is much closer to what we've seen from the XR industry and VR 180 filmmakers from the past decade, and Apple's technology is likely derived from their 2020 acquisition of NextVR. NextVR focused on live stereoscopic broadcasts of sports events on VR headsets starting with the Samsung Gear VR and Oculus Rift in 2014. A lot of the technical specifications of the Apple Immersive Video format have not been officially confirmed by Apple, but there are a couple of breadcrumbs that give us some more details. Thanks to iFixIt's breakdown of the Apple Vision Pro on February 7, 2024, then we know the microOLED display size is reported as "the lit area totals 3660 px by 3200 px." 360 Labs' Mike Rowell wrote a post on March 19, 2024 saying, "Apple Vision Pro's screens are a whopping 3660 x 3200 pixels per eye. Although they haven't made any official claims as to the FOV of the headset, 3rd party developers claim that it looks to be around 100° horizontal. With each screen having 3,660 horizontal pixels, this would mean that a 180° immersive experience would need about 6,000 x 6,000 pixels per eye to saturate the display. Apple's own immersive experiences have been reported at being 4320x4320 per eye at 90fps and in HDR10." The reporting of Apple's immersive experiences was detailed by Mike Swanson, who announced a spatial video tool on March 7, 2024 that leverages the Apple's AVFoundation to properly encode video into the "multiview extensions of the HEVC codec, known as MV-HEVC" format. Swanson says in his post, "I receive multiple messages and files every day from people who are trying to find the limits of what the Apple Vision Pro is capable of playing. You can start with the 4320×4320 per-eye 90fps content that Apple is producing and go up from there. I've personally played up to “12K” (11520×5760) per eye 360-degree stereo video at 30fps." Another clue can be found in the Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive camera that was announced on June 10, 2024, which says, "The sensor delivers 8160 x 7200 resolution per eye with pixel level synchronization and an incredible 16 stops of dynamic range, so cinematographers can shoot 90fps stereoscopic 3D immersive cinema content to a single file." Incidentally, Currents director Jake Oleson told me that he used Swanson's tool to create his immersive film after shooting it in 8k on the Canon EOS R5 Camera Body with Canon's Dual Fisheye lens.

CURRENTS is a stunning debut from Jake Oleson as it pushes the grammar of 180 filmmaking to new heights. Oleson comes from the world of advertising and music videos, and he went through a rigorous pre-production process where he had actually already edited the entire piece before shooting any production footage by using still stereoscopic test photos and videos. The insights from this pre-production animatic are evident, as there are some of the most stylized movements I've seen, and he managed to not trigger any of the common motion sickness triggers. There are some really powerful cuts that seamlessly juxtapose different environmental contexts for dramatic effect. CURRENTS tells the story of a young woman who leaves her Vietnam rural countryside home to the city seeking more economic opportunity. Aside from a short exchange with her mother at the beginning, the rest of the entire story is told through spatial storytelling, driving electronic music that was also composed by Oleson, and a shader-filled point-cloud scene with some animated motion capture. It's really quite a beautiful piece that gave me a glimpse of the next phase of cinematic immersive filmmaking. It's also worth mentioning CURRENTS in the context of other musical experiences since Oleson is both a musician who has a background in music video production. The music was specifically composed to serve the narrative in this instance, but it will be interesting to see more and more immersive music videos start to crop up now that the Apple Immersive video format is starting to get licensed out to folks like Vimeo, who commissioned this piece. Apple's push for 180-degree immersive video has brought up some broader discussions about the merits and downsides to 360-degree films. From a creator's point of view, 180-degree filmmaking is a lot easier to do logistically as it is closer to existing production pipelines, which is brilliantly demonstrated in CURRENTS. It's also worth noting that CURRENTS has a point-cloud scene that shows up in the middle of their cinematic 180-degree immersive video that represents a key turning point in the story and journey of the main protagonist. There's also some really poetic shaders that are translating the static scenes into even more of a dynamic visual representation of the business and chaos of the city. It has quite a narrative impact when juxtaposed against the photorealistic footage and custom-written and driving musical score. Even though the Apple Vision Pro has been out for over a year now, SXSW is still an opportunity for folks to check out the Apple Vision Pro for the first time. It was probably easiest to check out on CURRENTS who had six different headsets and was using the Sandwich Vision Theater app in Kiosk mode to seamlessly jump into the experience bypassing the time-consuming eye tracking calibration step. I was also particularly interested in Olson's production pipeline, the camera gear and kit costing less than $5k (Canon EOS R5 Camera Body, RF5.2mm F2.8 L Dual Fisheye, & DJI Ronin-SC Gimbal Stabilizer), Topaz Video AI Enhancer upscaling tools to go from 8k to 16k, and all of the due diligence that he did to understand and mitigate motion sickness triggers. The end result feels like a music video that tells a timeless story of the tension between rural and urban homes and what is lost in the pursuit of career opportunities. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

OTO'S PLANET was being exhibited on the Quest at SXSW, but I had a chance to check out the Apple Pro Version ahead of the SXSW festival and I felt like I much preferred it. OTO'S PLANET picked up the second place prize at Venice Immersive, but I missed being able to interview the director Gwenael Francois there. I did manage to catch up with Francois at SXSW to talk more about the development of this beautiful interactive narrative that uses table top-scale animation, and requires the user to rotate a tiny planet around in order to follow the story of Oto, his pet, and the story of a colonizing intruder who arrives. I found that the interactions were much smoother and immersive on the Apple Vision Pro than the Quest, and the higher resolution also popped a lot more. The Apple Vision Pro version defaults to mixed reality while there is an opportunity to see it in fully immersive VR on the Quest. I normally would prefer the Quest version, but having the better quality mixed reality cameras and overall much higher resolution in the Apple Vision Pro. Apple also featured Oto's Planet, and DPT CEO Nicholas Roy shares in this interview that they've actually received more purchases on Apple devices than Meta's ecosystem. Meta's storefront has been flooded by Meta's own first-party Horizon world as well as App Lab apps, and so it's very telling and reflective of the current state of distribution to have more sales for the Apple Vision Pro than Meta Quest. It is promising to see Apple get more serious at immersive storytelling as there was a session titled "Create Interactive Stories for Apple Vision Pro" on Tuesday morning featuring three representatives from Apple. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

Another Apple Vision Pro piece at SXSW 2025 was COSMOS IN FOCUS by Atlantic Studios (recently rebranded from Atlantic Productions). This was a short and sweet educational experience that allowed you to explore the imagery of the James Webb telescope, but it's both spatially contextualized in the night sky planetarium style. It is also fused together with other deep space satellite images at different scales of resolution creating this really cool zoom effect that's like a mash-up of the film POWERS OF TEN with Google Maps tiles, but in the context of space imagery. It's also an experience that demonstrates the power of collaborating with scientific researchers and subject matter experts as they're able to translate contextless 2D jpgs into an incredibly powerful immersive experience that not only preserves the original context, but leverages the immersive medium to provide many more learning opportunities. Many immersive stories on the festival circuit will shy away from more explicit didactic content or learning experiences, but this piece leans into it by reducing the choices a user can make streamlining the user journey. I also really enjoyed my conversation with Aditi Rajagopal, who led this project after transitioning from R&D and AR storytelling at Meta to immersive storytelling at Atlantic Studios. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

There was an projection-based immersive experience called ORIGINS - LIFE'S EPIC JOURNEY that was originally formatted for a digital art museum in Germany called Kunstkraftwerk Leipzig, but it was translated into a three-channel video installation that was showing in a small conference room at SXSW. I only saw the video version at SXSW, and so I have not experienced the piece within its originally-intended, fully-immersive context. But it's collaboration between digital artists Markos Kay, Martin Salfity, Thomas Vanz, Davy Evans, Gokhan Tekin, Susi Sie, Teun van der Zalm and Roman Hill to tell the story of the evolution of life from the smallest quantum to biological to galactic scales, each using different visual techniques to create these 25 different chapters. I had a chance to chat with Paolo Loeffler to get a bit more context on the evolution of Kunstkraftwerk Leipzig, and how ORIGINS was developed and commissioned to play in these projection-based immersive exhibition spaces. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

FLY TO YOU tells the story of Kang Songjeol who was separated from her childhood friends in the aftermath of the 1950 split between North and South Korea. Oral history interviews were captured in 360 video, and her childhood memories were recreated with point scans derived from Leici BLK360 LiDAR scans combined with Azure Kinect volumetric captures. The experience manages to virtually fly over the restricted demilitarized zone into North Korea, which is something that is illegal from them to do physically but serves as a symbolic gesture towards reunification. There are still thousands of families hoping for an opportunity to be reunited, and there's a beautiful spatial memorial that brings home that point at the end of this piece. I had a chance to unpack it all with co-directors Sngmoon Lee and Youngyun Song This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

SYMPHONI is a brand new hand-tracked rhythm game that was inspired by the mechanics of conducting a symphony. It was directed by Ingram Mao and developed by a number of undergrads and graduates of the USC Games program. This game also goes from mixed reality into fully immersive VR as you progress through each of the stages, but it's a really fresh take within the rhythm game genre as I found myself playing for over an hour on my first playthroughs. Mao comes from an interior design and architecture background, but also thinks very deeply about the game mechanics and innumerable tradeoffs to be navigated through the game design process, and so it was a real pleasure to have a chance to dig into the weeds of the process of developing this experience. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

ECHOVISION is the latest experience from multi-disciplinary artist Jiabao Li that has three major parts. The first part is a mobile-phone based mixed reality experience that does a metaphoric translation of echolocation by using LiDAR to detect your immediate physical surroundings, and then reveals it with a rippling shader that is voice activated. The second part is a video that poetically visualizes different bat calls that have been identified by AI into different contextual domains, and there's a really awesome haptic couch experience that goes along with it. The last part is a field trip to the Congress Street bridge to watch the emergence of hundreds of thousands of bats come out at night as they go to eat. I caught up Li to hear more about all of her interdisciplinary and interspecies collaborations on this piece. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

There were a number of pieces at SXSW that were centered around embodied interactions including HONEY FUNGUS, which is a series of interactive embodied experiments telling a broader story of cultivating intimacy with ecology. This piece leans more into embodied dream logic rather than clearly articulating a narrative journey, and I had a fascinating conversation with Johan King who decoded the underlying symbolism. King's first step of his creative process was to go down a rabbit hole researching queer ecology and the latest research on fungi, and he wrote an essay titled "Unfathomable Intimacies" that lays out his original inspirations. One thing that really stuck with me from the experience was this intriguing AI mash-up of Smithsonian Field Research and amateur erotica designed in order to cultivate a new form of ecological intimacy with the world around us. I appreciated this experience a lot more after having a chance to learn more about additional context provided on the website as well as insights gained from my conversation with King. To me the dream logic in this piece leans a little bit more into personal symbols that need some decoding rather than more universal archetypes that are easier to project the intended meaning upon. But I always love learning more about Fungi since they represent so many paradigm-shattering insights. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

1906 ATLANTA RACE MASSACRE is a phone-based AR experience directed by Nonny de la Peña that digs into the forgotten history of the violent attacks on the black community by white mobs incited by race-baiting politicians and newspapers. The arc of the story is told through the lens of black journalist Max Barber, who was chronicling the events as they were unfolding. We see a series of volumetrically captured monologues by Barber (played by actor Bryonn Bain). As the massacre unfolds, we travel to different key locations around Atlanta represented by spatial facades and Quill illustrations. There's also a series of 2D AI animations ranging from white politicians in newspapers to black activists who are in picture frames. I spoke with de la Peña around some of the constraints and limitations of working with mobile phones that are not completely optimized for XR experiences like this just yet, but it's much more accessible form factor that the executive producer of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights is interested getting into schools. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

THE CHOICE returns to SXSW with the latest Chapters 2 and 3, and continues to capture intimate testimonials of women and couples who make the choice to abort their pregnancies. Chapters 1 and 2 take place in Texas where abortion is now nearly totally banned in all but a few situations. The legal specificity of these exceptions is ambiguous enough that doctors often avoid providing reproductive health care for abortions because they're afraid of being prosecuted or losing their license. This means that it is legal for doctors to lie to patients, which is what happens in Chapter 1 causing the protagonist to nearly die. Chapter 2 features a pregnancy clinic that turned out to be run by an anti-abortion religious group who tried to pressure her to not have an abortion. And Chapter 3 features an older Canadian couple who started to have some doubts, but ultimately decided to not carry the pregnancy to term. THE CHOICE features some really stereoscopic video effects combined with depth information to create a really realistic face-to-face conversation. As the viewer, you have the ability to subtly guide the conversation by choosing which questions to ask. But overall, it's a really powerful example of how these types of simulated conversations creates an engaged way for people to hear the details of someone's situation where they may actually change their opinion about abortion. Joanne Popinska and Tom C. Hall tell me that they have experienced being able to change minds with their first chapter, and they're looking forward to continuing to spread the word with their 2nd and 3rd chapters that premiered at SXSW. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

WAYS OF KNOWING: A NAVAJO NUCLEAR HISTORY tells the story of the impact of uranium mining on the Navajo community. This film is a unique collaboration between a Navajo storyteller Sunny Dooley and nuclear nonproliferation expert Lovely Umayam where the story of US nuclear history is told through an indigenous lens. This means telling the story of how nuclear policy has impacted Navajo land, but also on the intergenerational impact on the Navajo people. The fully immersive quality of 360 video allows Dooley to preserve the full context of how she would tell the story to her community. This was my favorite interview from SXSW 2025 as it is another great example of how the immersive quality of VR is able to capture and transmit indigenous ways of knowing, and how this indigenous perspective is also changing how nuclear nonproliferation experts are thinking about these nuclear policy issues. This film would also not be able to be told the same way if it was only 180 degrees, and it is a prescient example of the affordances of VR to be able to tell the story of a place with its full relational context. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

SHELTER is a 360 video documentary telling the story of civilians in Ukraine seeking protection in bomb shelters. The film poetically transports you the many different ways Ukrainians are sheltering from small cramped basements to parking garages to hospitals. It also contrasts these underground spaces to the aftermath of war from bombed out buildings to funerals for Ukrainian soldiers. The experience always documents how the dream lives of Ukrainians are impacted by the war as they also overlay these dream sequences over billboarded videos of drone strikes. Overall, it's a meditative and powerful journey of cinéma vérité, observational durational takes that are juxtaposed together to tell a much larger story of the human impact of war. . Check out my deep dive with director Sjors Swierstra and producer Justin Karten for more insights in how they put this piece together. Apple's push for 180-degree immersive video has brought up some broader discussions about the merits and downsides to 360-degree films. From a creator's point of view, 180-degree filmmaking is a lot easier to do logistically as it is closer to existing production pipelines, which is brilliantly demonstrated in CURRENTS. The main downside is that it is difficult to control where people are looking, but the main benefit is that you're able to preserve the full context of a place. SHELTER was one of two films that really leaned into being able to be fully transported to a place without having to worry about selecting a constrained frame or point of focus.  This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

TRACES: THE GRIEF PROCESSOR is a multi-user interactive VR experience where four people are invited to poetically explore and learn more about their grief. Created by documentary filmmaker Vali Fugulin, it features didactic conversations about grief with ritualist Stéphane Crête who leans upon Francis Weller's Five Gates of Grief. Fugulin resists describing her piece as a grief ritual with any therapeutic intent, and she sees it more as a catalyst for thinking about or having conversations about your grief rather than facilitating deep emotional catharsis. The experience takes you through a series of different interactive exercises where you play with different externalized, symbolic, spatial representations of your grief. The experience culminates with an asynchronous sharing of your story of grief based upon a minute-long audio recording that you're asked to record while looking at an image representing your grief you're asked to upload before the experience begins. There were a number of aspects about this experience that did not quite work for me, and it's hard to know if it's due to my own peculiarities of VR-induced social anxiety or if there could be changes in flow of the recording and decisions around consent. I'd prefer to see examples of other recordings before being asked to record anything, and I'd also prefer to make decisions on whether I'd like to share my recording with others in the moment after having a chance to record (and possibly re-record) something. These privacy decisions were put up front without the full context of how something you might do in an experience might be shared, and with no options to change your mind later. This meant that I regretted my decision, and there was no way to stop my failed recording from being shared with others in the experience. I did have the opportunity to retract my data at the end, but I would have preferred to be able to make that decision in the moment. Again, this could come down to my unique position of having a really recognizable voice within a small community. I do believe that there are a lot of great opportunities for developing new types of grief rituals within social VR spaces, but at the same time there are still a lot of missing body language cues that can open doors for some and close doors for others.  This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

There were a number of projects exploring social dynamics within immersive pieces, including the special jury prize winner for the XR competition PROOF AS IF PROOF WERE NEEDED. This was a projection-based video project that featured video feeds from four different rooms in a home where a couple is searching for different objects. There are five audience members who are walking between rooms represented by a top-down blueprint of the home, and there's a computer vision system that's detecting where the most people are located and then showing the feed from that room. There are six speakers providing an ongoing Foley-based spatial audio narrative of sounds coming from different locations giving the audience a clue as to where they should investigate to puzzle together the cryptic narrative. The core mechanics felt SLEEP NO MORE-inspired where you move between different rooms to see different threads of a multi-threaded story, and you use your body to edit the experience. But instead of a single POV, it's abstracted into a collective social experiment where you have to collaborate with four other people in order to vote on what room video feed to watch. In the end, there's a lot of the story that remained a complete mystery to me until I had the symbolic dream logic decoded in my interview with co-director Ting Tong Chang and Blast Theory representative Anne Rupert. Here's the jury statement about this piece, "Spoiler Alert! The Special Jury Award Winner made us feel lost, frustrated and disconnected from each other. What started as a slow burn, turned into an unexpected connection and dance between space, story, technology and human behavior." This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

The final AI-related piece this year was THE LAST PRACTICE, which I unfortunately have not had a chance to see yet because there were a number of technical glitches that prevented me from seeing it on site. I did however have a chance to remotely catch up with director Phil McCarty to talk more about the story and mechanics of the experience. Part of the synopsis says, "In a world beset with algorithmic careers and generative push-button-creativity in the name of "AI", what is the role of art, and inspiration any more?" After a number of monologues from virtual band members, then you are asked to create a mash-up song from different genres by choosing different album covers. McCarty may be making some critical reflections on AI within his story, but he's also simultaneously a big user of AI tools to facilitate his own creative process in producing this piece. We talk about this paradox in our conversation, but also his journey into the XR industry as a writer, musician, filmmaker, and as a writer on WHAT IF…? – AN IMMERSIVE STORY (previously covered in episodes #1391 & #1437). This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

Another AI-based project at SXSW this year was SWEET! by Dutch designer and artist René van Engelenburg of DROPSTUFF MEDIA. This is a projection-mapped physical installation designed to facilitate a very brief conversation with an OpenAI LLM-driven virtual being about the parallels between how sugar is added to all of our food and how AI is currently being added to all of our technologies. The virtual being uses a sort of Socratic method of questioning to solicit your opinion in four leading questions that are making an argument about the commonalities between sugar and AI. It's a short five-minute experience, and so I did the piece three different times to understand the underlying mechanics of how it's built. It never felt like a true conversation as there's a superficial acknowledgement of my responses, but always immediately progresses onto the pre-set monologue that is pre-written within the series of prompts without having what I see seemingly impact the substance of the conversation beyond some prompted images that are projected onto the white set of a candy store. So instead of a truly, open-ended Socratic dialogue, this experience feels more like a Socratic monologue where questions are only driving a superficial sentiment analysis before moving onto the delivery of the next random fact or story beat. We still have a long way to go before these LLM-based experiences can balance a convincing conversation while also telling a compelling story, but this feels like the type of XR immersive installation providing a holographic embodiment of the virtual being is a compelling form factor that I can see being further developed in the future. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

Curating archives was a theme that I also explored in a conversation wtih Tamara Shogaolu about her piece ORYZA: HEALING GROUND that premiered at DocLab 2024. She was at SXSW showing the interactive AR story game ANOUSCHKA exploring the memories of her grandmother through various cultural artifacts (see Shogaolu interview with her about ANOUSCHKA from its world premiere at DocLab 2023). ORYZA wasn't showing at SXSW, but I had a chance to catch up with Shogaolu to unpack how she's working with archives to document cultural artifacts enslaved people, and then expand it into speculative art with a consistent aesthetic using a custom-built AI system that is centered on Black histories. Shogaolu details her experiences of instances where large-language model AI systems have erased Black people, and how she's had to hack existing AI systems in order to get the outputs she wants. But she's also training entirely new models using materials from archives that are not included within existing models. We explore the paradox of desiring cultural representation in these AI systems while also avoiding the negative side effects of extractive cultural appropriation, and this new trend of training custom AI models as a form of artistic expression leading of future dreaming to unique mash-up of speculative futures and historical archives. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

The SXSW XR Competition jury prize winner REFLECTIONS OF LITTLE RED DOT had some really innovative mixed reality integrations, and was also a part of a new trend of cultivating an archive of material as an artistic practice. This piece by director Chloé Lee featured about 3 hours of documentary interview footage shot in Singapore starting in 2015 exploring a variety of different themes. Originally started with the intent to create a documentary to learn more about her mother's homeland, Lee turned to mixed reality to create sets of themes featuring looping clips from interviews she conducted to tell the story of Singapore. The experience creates a sense of wandering that you get when exploring a new place, and allows you to dip in and out of different flows of thought. You can navigate these different themes by placing a physical photo slide into a retro slide projector that only takes one slide at a time. Once you pop it in, then you immediately see a mixed reality light creating a holographic Singaporean table where you can sit down and navigate 5-6 different clips. It's one of the more compelling uses of mixed reality I've seen that creates a holographic illusion that you use your body to edit between these different interview clips. The jury statement reads, "Deceptively humble and delightful, this open-world documentary invites us to freely explore a country in transition. Guided by a daring new talent in XR storytelling, it confronts us with the vulnerability of everyday life, evoking a universal sense of place." This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

THE SECRET LIFE OF MONSTERS: THE GATEWAY EXPERIENCE is a mixed reality puzzle game created by Wallrus Creative Technologies as an immersive demo in order to feature the unique tracking technology they've created in order to better facilitate LBE mixed reality experiences on the Quest. They built a tracking system hidden within their custom tiling in order to have all of the Quest HMDs know where true north is located, and avoiding some of the more annoying and time-consuming calibration steps involved with mixed reality experiences. The experience itself featured a seamless transition between floating mixed portals and immersive worlds where you have to find and scan corrupting monsters in the parallel realities. I get the full story of how the project developed from Emile Arragon and JP Desjardins, and it's interesting to note that Arragon is really sensitive to motion sickness from virtual locomotion in VR, but mixed reality experiences where you only move when your body moves are a lot more comfortable for him. At the end of the day, this piece does feel a bit more like a tech demo than full-on game or fully fleshed out story or world, but it serves the purpose of demonstrating their elegant solution to a MR calibration and orientation solution that could open up a number of new mixed reality experiences within different LBE contexts. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

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 Cannizaro. 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. SXSW XR Experience Competition 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre Any War Any Enemy - #1490: “Any War Any Enemy” is a Beautiful Anti-War, Immersive Poem About Nuclear Annihilation Cosmos in Focus Currents Face Jumping Honey Fungus In the Current of Being Proof As If Proof Were Needed Reflections of Little Red Dot Shelter The Choice - Chapters 2 and 3 - [See my coverage of Chapter 1: #1075: Stereoscopic Compositing Innovations & “The Choice” Interactive Documentary Exploring Reproductive Rights in Texas] The Last Practice The Secret Life of Monsters - The Gateway Experience Traces: The Grief Processor 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 A Number From the Ghost EchoVision Fly To You Future Botanica - #1514: Creating GenAI Flower Ecosystem with “Future Botanica” AR App Just for You Trilogy All That Remains - #1126: Re-creating Experimental Theatre 1:1 Encounters via 360 video with “All That Remains” Over the Rainbow - #1250: Translating 1:1 Experimental Theatre Encounters into 360 Video to Transcend Expectations with Craig Quintero A Simple Silence - #1422: “A Simple Silence” Wraps Up Craig Quintero's Trilogy Exploring Spatial Transformations & Immersive Encounters Origins - Life's Epic Journey Oto's Planet Resolution: A Cinephonic Rhapsody for the Soul Sweet! Symphoni The Art of Change - #1446: Studio Syro's “The Art Of Change” is the Best Immersive Music Video Experience I've Seen So Far Pushing at the Edges of Spatial Grammar Uncanny Alley: A New Day - #1442: Combining VRChat Worldbuilding with Immersive Theatre Storytelling in “Uncanny Alley: A New Day” SXSW XR Events Spreadsheet of Unofficial List of Parties & Events @ SXSW 2025 for the XR Community SXSW 2025 Film & TV Opening Night Party (Platinum and Film & TV Badges only) - Mar 7, 2025 10:00pm CT Creators & Cocktails: Happy Hour with Kwame Appiah - Mar 8, 2025 5:00pm CT ASU Happy Hour At SXSW - Mar 9, 2025 5:00pm CT VR/AR/XR Dev Meet Up - Mar 11, 2025 2:30pm CT Television Academy Emerging Media Peer Group Meet Up - Mar 11, 2025 4:00pm CT Future X Music Showcase Presented by Ristband - Mar 11, 2025 8:40pm CT NOWISWHENWEARE (the stars) is showing on afternoon & evening slots on March 11th & 12th SXSW 2025 Film & TV Intermission Party (Platinum and Film & TV Badges only) - Mar 12, 2025 10:00pm CT This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

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...