Voices of VR Podcast – Designing for Virtual Reality

I gave a lecture about "Blending the Elements of Experiential Design" on Saturday, June 6, 2026 at Seattle XR in Seattle, Washington. (PDF of Slides]. At the end, I run through some examples of the types of interdisciplinary fusion that I see within the context of immersive storytelling and immersive art. This lecture also digs into the process-relational philosophical foundations, as well as how I'm gaining additional inspiration from Empedocles, Aristotle, and the Classical Quadrivium (Four Arts) of Math, Music, Geometry, and Astronomy. For my 30+ hours of coverage of Venice Immersive, then I apply this archetypal framework to help describe the context, quality, character, and story of each of these projects. You can see an overview of how I've been using this framework in this PDF on "Venice Immersive 2025 Archetypal Categorizations" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01M5NcOYzx0 One of goals of this talk was to further define the archetypal nature of the elements, and how I'm conceiving of them as a possibility space of design tradeoffs (C.S. Peirce's "Firstness"), but also as the concrete decisions that an experiential designer makes ("Secondness"), and then finally how these decisions are experienced more from a phenomenological experience as the audience as we feel, sense, act, and make sense of these experiences, and what they might mean ("Thirdness"). I do not actually dive into Peirce's concepts of Firstness, Secondness, or Thirdness in this specific talk, but I wanted to elaborate on these concepts in this write-up as these have been crucial concepts to help translate the overall abstract Firstness quality of my talk, and ground it into the Secondness of something that is a bit more practical and pragmatic. For Peirce, his semiology is grounded into a triune theory of actualization that goes from a non-Boolean possibility space as Firstness, and then grounds into a Boolean actualization of secondness, and then an interpretant mediates from the concreteness of the Secondness object back to the Firstness of the fundamental archetypal qualities or meaning. I find speculative philosopher James Bradley's summary of the Peirce's triune semiology to be the most easy to digest in his essay titled, "Beyond Hermeneutics: Peirce's Semiology as a Trinitarian Metaphysics of Communication." I can also recommend this article on "Peirce's Theory of Signs" from the The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for a comprehensive recap, and there's also this excellent YouTube series primer by Philosign's Markus Raninen titled The Basics of Semiotics. But here's Bradley's description of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness, which I find myself coming back to again and again. "Within the fundamental speculative triunity of activity, difference and order, or firstness, secondness and thirdness, semiology is an analysis of order or thirdness… Thirdness is analyzed as idea or sign, as the exchange of information between individual entities, and as interpretation; in other words, thirdness is itself a threefold of sign, object and interpretant. Here, sign occupies the position of firstness because it is the potentiality for interpretation; object occupies that of secondness because it is determinate; and the interpretant occupies that of thirdness because the interpretant has the sign-interpreting or sign-ordering role, and so has the status of a third. [24] Thus for Peirce semiology is the analysis of the triune relation of sign, object and interpretant." It's still a bit obtuse, and one way that I like to think about it is through the experience of communication. You have a possibility space of meaning you want to convey (Firstness of the sign/potential), then you choose specific words that convey that meaning (Secondness of the object), then someone listens to those words and phrases, and then connects those words back to a meaning space (Thirdness of the interpretant mediating between the two). For Peirce, each of the Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness can also refer to themselves, like you can have a Firstness of Thirdness or Secondness of Firstness. It gets a little bit confusing, but I found the following graphic from Collected Essays in Speculative Philosophy (2021) by James Bradley and edited by Sean McGrath to be very useful. Within the context of immersive storytelling, then it's a semiotic process of communication of meaning where you're able to use all sorts of affordances from game design, literature, social dynamics and relations, music, film, lighting, architecture, dance, theme park design, sensory design, and embodiment. My Elemental Theory of Presence attempts to simplify this into the following: Fire Element of Active Presence: Interactivity, Agency, Game Design Air Element of Mental & Social Presence: Meaning, Semiotics, Language, Possibility, Form, Relationality Water Element of Emotional Presence: Experiential Processes, Story, Film, Music, Cycles, Time Earth Element of Environmental & Embodied Presence: Sensory, Immersive, Worldbuilding, Space I elaborate on the various philosophical frameworks that I'm leaning up within this talk that I gave on June 6, 2026, but since then I've been diving more into Peirce and his Triune Metaphysics and Semiology of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness, which has been a helpful framework as I've been applying the elements to my Venice Immersive Coverage and categorizing the elemental center of gravity for each of the nearly 40 projects that I covered. Again see this framework in this PDF on "Venice Immersive 2025 Archetypal Categorizations" to see how I have been thinking about each of these projects. I used this approach in the introductions for each of my podcast episodes from Venice (see the links down below). Firstness of Fire: Creativity, Novelty, Intention, Purpose, Goals, & Aristotle's Final Cause Secondness of Fire: Interactivity & Core Gameplay Loops Thirdness of Fire: Agency & Will For Active Presence Examples of Fire: Game Design, Locomotion Options: No Movement, Automatic movement, Teleportation, or free roaming. The LIVENESS of the Live, To what degree does the experience encourage the expression of will and agency? And to what degree does that alter how the narrative unfolds (narrative agency vs participatory interactive moments that customize and flavor the experience)? Adventure, Exploration, Creativity, Novelty, Freedom, Will, and Collective Action. System Dynamics, & iterative feedback loops Firstness of Air: Peirce's "Sign," Intended Meaning, Pattern & Form, Archetypal Possibility Spaces, Relationality, & Aristotle's Formal Cause Secondness of Air: Peirce's "Object" Within A Triadic Semiotic Process (i.e. a specific action, word, harmonic, or action that points to a larger meaning.) Thirdness of Air: Peirce's "Interpretant," Sensemaking Thoughts, Expectations, & Social Dynamics For Mental & Social Presence Examples of Air: Literature, Language, Semiotics, Communication, Symbols, Abstractions. Single Player vs Multi-Player, Suspension of Disbelief and Plausibility, Social Dynamics, Anticipation of the Future, Possibility Spaces, Types of Choices. Realms of Speculative Imagination, How is meaning communicated? Dialogue amongst characters, voice-over narration, environmental storytelling, non-verbal associative dream logic. Mental friction from puzzles. Rules & Mechanics. Use of certain types of AI and Conversational Interfaces with Virtual Beings Firstness of Water: Time, Cycles, Harmonics, Value, & Aristotle's "Material Cause" (in Whitehead's event ontology, then base reality is processes, relationships, and possibilities of value & not Substance) Secondness of Water: Experiential Processes That Provide Contrasts Thirdness of Water: Feelings for Emotional Presence Examples of Water: Cinematic Film Tradition, Music, Harmonics, Rhythm, Pacing, Editing, Contrasts, Emotion, Memory, Dreams, Images, Soul, Psyche, Symbols, Lighting, Mood, Collective Unconscious Firstness of Earth: Space, World, Context, & Aristotle's Efficient Cause Secondness of Earth: Environment & Worldbuilding With Situated Perspectives in that Context Thirdness of Earth: Sensory Perception & Sense of Place for Embodied & Environmental Presence Examples of Earth: Worldbuilding of a spatial context & culture. Architecture, Theater, Theme Park Design, Dance, Are you a ghost or an embodied character? Sensory Experience: Touch/Haptics, Hearing/Spatial Sound, Smells, Vision. Relation of Immersive Tech to Environment as either VR, MR, or AR. Virtual CGI vs Cinematic 180/360 Video, Again, check out this PDF on "Venice Immersive 2025 Archetypal Categorizations" to see how I've ranked nearly 40 projects from Venice Immersive 2025 on the relative elemental center of gravity. Some projects feel more like a cinematic immersive film, which would be a bit more biased towards the Water Element. Some projects are more focused on the experience of a world that was build, and more focused on the Earth Element. Some projects are asking you to Read a book together with other people, which is more focused on the Air Element. And then other more game-like experiences are focused on using interactions as their primary mode of engagement, and so they're more focused on the fire element. There are 64 total combinations of the elements in terms of the first, second, third, or four centers of gravity, and you can see the comprehensive visualization here: Technically, all four elements are always happening all at once all at the same time. However, in experiential design, then creators can emphasize and blend elements together. So I find that ranking the elements can be helpful in determining an overall center of gravity, and that looking at the first two centers of gravity can achieve a sufficient job of creating some ad hoc, immersive and "elemental genres....

I interviewed Sister Sylvester about Constantinopoliad on Friday, September 12, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Constantinopoliad: "Constantinopoliad is a collective reading and audio work. A response to the archive of the poet Constantine Cavafy, the story is inspired by the blank and torn-out pages in Constantinopoliad, an Epic, the journal the teenage Cavafy began when he and his family fled Alexandria; by lost and missing queer archives through time; and by the ghosts, both erotic and historical, that visit the older Cavafy in his poems." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: The exploration of identity [1] as a person has moved from his home [4], and into a distant land [9] with some feelingsof being exiled [12], but also the implication of homosexuality [5] within the context of having to remain hidden or taboo [12]. It's dipping into the vast archive [9] of Cavafy's expressions of identity [1] and poetry and art [5], and recontextualizing as these universal experiences that are still very much relevant today [9]. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: collaboratively reading together - narrative distillation of an archive. You listening to the audio narration, but you have to negotiate how to co-read this "book" object together. The form of this "book" also deviates from normal book where it is part pop-up book, but also a flat stage to be explored with the other person. This externalized book becomes a bit of an abstracted theatrical stage for the story as it unfolds, but there are also more explicitly architectural elements to this "book" object as well. The piece also creates an implicit invitation to connect and talk with your audience partner afterwards about the piece2nd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: AMAZING MUSIC + time-based narration + lighting. There's some amazing synchrony between the music, the timing of the reading, as well as the lighting. It really gives a strong sense of time. The reading of the story almost feels like a narrative podcast of sorts, but is mostly a matter of convenience of recording of the live performance so that it could be toured at immersive festivals without the burden of paying for all of the performers and musicians.3rd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Book like object as an architectural artifact, and has a whole spatial journey. The installation also had tables with lighting effects, but also there were projctions that were happening within the space as well. Most of the focus of spatial experience happens within the context of the architectural nature of the "book" object, but the other theatrical elements of the environment definitely help to cultivate an overall mood.4th Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Explore the story through various interactions. There's no narrative agency per se, although one could deviate from directly reading along with the text. There's an implicit contract to stay on course with your actions since you're negotiating the experience with another person. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Exploration of the "lost and missing queer archives through time; and by the ghosts, both erotic and historical, that visit the older Cavafy in his poems" Artist Statement: "My favorite response to this work was an audience member who described it as 'making love to a stranger through a book'. The work invites audiences into a sensual and concrete encounter with Cavafy's life and poems: fingers making contact with history; illumination revealing images from between the pages; sounds conjuring the ghosts of 19th century Alexandrian cabarets. With words by sister sylvester, score by Nadah El Shazly, and illustrations by Efrîn Özyetis, Constantinopoliad is a multi-sensory encounter with the past, and with forgotten stories that can haunt us into new imaginings for the present." You can see the projects I covered at Venice Immersive 2025 categorized in this image: Below, you will find links to my 30+ hours of my coverage from Venice Immersive 2025 across 39 episodes. I've categorized the experiences according to these "elemental genres," which is looking at the top two elemental centers of gravity. You can listen to this episode or watch the video version of "The Blending the Elements on Experiential Design" YouTube on for more details. #1650: Sneak Peak of Venice Immersive 2025 Selection with Curators Liz Rosenthal and Michel Reilhac #1750: Doug Liman's "Asteroid" Short Immersive Film with Google Gemini Story Extension + Kickoff of Venice Immersive 2025 Coverage #1751: "Ghost Town" Narrative Integration in Puzzle Adventure with Exquisite Worldbuilding #1752: Blending Embodied Game & Narrative Genres with "One True Path, Part 1" #1753: Mixed Reality Town-Building and Sim Game "Wall Town Wonders" #1754: Screen Life Thriller "LILI" about Surveillance Fuses Game Design, Film, and MacBeth Adaptation #1755: Hand-Tracked Sign Language as Story Beat Triggers in "Eddie and I" #1756: Exploring Narrative Potential of Generative AI in "8pm and the Cat" #1757: Embody a Geranium in Immersive Comedy about Boredom in "The Great Escape" #1758: Reckoning with Mental Health Taboos in Japan with "If You See a Cat" Immersive Animation #1759: Mother-Daughter Team Explore Personal Challenges with Depression and Anxiety in "Mirage" Immersive Animation #1760: Immersive Fairy Tale about Automation with "The Sad Story of the Little Mouse Who Wanted to Become Somebody" #1761: Unpacking the Immersive Orchestral Mix of "1968" with Massimiliano Borghesi #1762: Fusing Experimental Immersive Animation with Cutting-Edge Orchestral Spatial Audio Mix in "1968" #1763: Blending Theater and 360 Video in "Re-Launching-Luigi-Broglio" #1764: Mixing Hand-Drawn Animation with 360 Video in "The Time Before" #1765: Immersive Action Thriller "Mulan 2125" Pushes the Edge of Graphical Fidelity #1766: Formula 1 LBE Experience "Black Cats & Chequered Flags" is an Immersive Biopic of Alberto Anscari #1767: Immersive Journey through Special Effects Pioneer Carlo Rambaldi's Paintings in "Alien Perspective" #1768: Symbolic Journey through Lithuania's Artist Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis' Paintings in "Creation of the World" #1769: Mixed Reality Musical on Avatars and Identity in "First Virtual Suit" #1770: Eastern Philosophy-Inspired Fusion of Theater and XR with "Mnemosyne" #1771: Environmental Storytelling in "The Great Orator" VR Diorama with Generative AI Experiments #1772: Climate Change Spatial Montage "Out of Nowhere" Aspires to Move Towards Rewilding Prevention #1773: "Collective Body" Assigns Elemental Avatars Based Upon Archetypal Dance Movements #1774: Combining Live Dance and Music in Immersive LBE Performance "L'ombre (The Shadow)" #1775: The Continuous Spatial One-Shot of Backlight's "La Magie Opera" LBE #1776: The Spatial Grammar Innovations of Dialectical Contrasts and Abstraction within "The Big Cube" #1777: Active Imagination, Associative Dream Logic, & Embodied Interactions in "Sense of Nowhere" #1778: Collaborative Social Game and Story of "Happy Shadow" #1779: "Heartbeat" Immersive, 1-on-1 Biometric Synchronization and Involuntary Collective Agency #1780: Recap of VRChat Worlds Gallery at Venice Immersive 2025 with Mike Salmon #1781: Winner of Venice Immersive 2025 "The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up" Innovates on Gaussian Splats & Spatial Storytelling #1782: "A Long Goodbye" Wins 3rd Place Prize at Venice Immersive with Emotionally-Moving Story on Dementia and Spatial Grammar Innovations #1783: "Less Than 5gr of Saffron" Wins 2nd Place Prize at Venice Immersive with Spatial Poem Quill Animation #1784: The Incredible Spatial Transitions of "Dark Rooms" with Radical Consent Innovations #1785: The Landmark Achievements of "Blur" in Fusing Theater, Montage, Mixed Reality, and LBE VR #1786: Collective Reading Experience of "Constantinopoliad" Provokes Discussion on Defining "Immersive" #1787: Blending the Elements of Experiential Design & Process-Relational Foundations of the Elements This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Craig Quintero & Phoebe Greenberg about Blur on Friday, August 29, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Blur: "Blur presents a new myth for the modern age, where science has changed how we think about life and death. With cloning and advances in resurrection biology, we have obscured the boundaries between the living and the dead — the natural and the artificial. This extended reality theatrical production unfolds as a dreamscape, shifting between real and virtual, taking participants on a journey of reflection on grief and eternality." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Some fundamental questions around LIFE [1] and DEATH [8]. Blur born out of a "desire to explore the emotional and ethical terrain where science, loss and imagination collide." Philosophical and ethical implications [9] of the science human cloning [9] as explored through the main story of a mother [4] who's child [5] has died [8]. Explores a speculative and imaginal space of scienced-based possibilities [9] with imagery reflecting these moral and ethical dilemmas [9] around these hybrid entities [Combination of [1] Self with [7] ]. Also the implications of taking extinct animals [8] like the Wooley Mammoth or Dire Wolf, and resurrecting them through science [9], and bringing them back to life [1]. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Blend of Immersive VR, CGI, Cinematic 360 video, 180 video, Mixed Reality. With specific architectural modulations, live performance, and integrations of your embodiment. Some Generative AI around your representations of embodied identity. There's also a LOT of invisible spatial choreography that is happening behind the scenes in order to move a number of human bodies through a physical space without colliding into each other, whilst also creating a seamless virtually-mediate spatial journey that is also A LOT MORE VAST than the constraints of the physical space. So it really feels like being taken on an expansive journey through space and time within this piece.2nd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Constant perversion of expectations and experience of having the "rug pulled out from underneath you." Symbolic Dream Logic, and Theatre of the Absurd. There's a lot of abstract and semiotic associative linking that Quintero describes as a "Rauschenberg-like collage" blending and blurring together lots of various archetypal forms to communicate their message. There's definitely a narrative to be parsed, but you have to sort of piece it together as there's a lot of symbolic communication, as well as expectation-perversion that either creates a deep sense of awe and wonder, or it can also be confusion for some where the overall plausibilty throughline and suspension of disbelief results more in a break in presence from a "I don't get it" experience rather than a deepening of awe from an unbounded possibility space. Overall feels a bit like waking from a dream, and then trying to parse it. There is also a moment of a theatre-for-one encounter, and then later more of a collective experience.3rd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: LIVE PERFORMANCE of theatrical actors. There's some constructed locomotive agency within bounds to replicate wandering. Some more interactive parts near the end. No real agency to change the flow of the narrative4th Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Cinematic VR, but also a specific cadence and pacing of the narrative. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Blur explores "fundamental questions of identity and selfhood, and what makes 'me' me?" The strurctures of our society and science mashed up against the dissolving and dissolution of the boundaries between the science and humanity bringing questions around the archetypal qualities that make us uniquely human. The idealized image of the human form from evolution, then gets dissolved through hybrid combinations, that is also amplified by the actual blending and blurring of communication media from MR to VR to Invidual and Collective Theatrical Performances to Architecture with bit of magic thrown in. It's a seamless use of the forms of immersive and experiential to amplify the overall themes of the piece. What is Imaginal / Virtual / Synthetic / Artificial / Eternal? vs What is Real and Mortal? Life vs Death in the context of Scientific Truths and Technological Advance. "With cloning and advances in resurrection biology, we have obscured the boundaries between the living and the dead — the natural and the artificial." Artist Statement: "Blur was born from a shared desire to explore the emotional and ethical terrain where science, loss and imagination collide.Meeting in Venice, we recognised a deep alignment in poetic storytelling and a fascination with questions raised by cloning, bioengineering and de-extinction. The work examines the human urge to transcend death and the consequences of reshaping life. Combining immersive theatre, motion capture, passthrough, VR and AR, we invite audiences into a sensorial and surreal journey — where AI, myth and grief intersect. Blur is both a cautionary tale and a meditation on fragile humanity: a boundary-pushing experience that challenges perception while grounded in universal emotions." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFXTon0-tQ0 This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Mads Damsbo & Laurits Flensted-Jensen about Dark Rooms on Saturday, August 30, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Dark Rooms: "Dark Rooms is an exploration of human psychology through the prism of sexuality. The viewer and two other participants are invited to explore four inner spaces, each one a private, intimate story told and co-created by real people. A unique, embodied experience, guiding the users step by step into the heart of human desire and the shadows it casts. Dark Rooms is a sensory, site-specific and immersive installation that confronts the audience with their own bias and boundaries, exposing our deepest longings and the forces that may shape our sexual identities." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Alternative and non-normative sexualities [5] that are usually hidden or taboo [12]. Exploring the culture of these Dark Rooms [11], the connection to personal identity [1], but also past and various familial traumas.[4]. Watch both as an invisible ghost [12], but also moments as an embodied character [1] to mimic being a part of this alternative culture [11]. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Immerse yourself into the spatial architecture of these dark rooms. You're mostly a ghostly observer, but sometimes you do swtich into having an embodied role as a character within the narrative that's unfolding. But more to embody the form rather than to communicate or fully participate. More to evoke some embodied memories than to truly participate. The spatial transitions and overall spatial journey within this piece was one of the best jobs that I've ever seen. Feel like truely being taken on a spatial journey that I locomote through using my body and walking, but there's a cinematic quality to the spatial editing and rhythm of storytelling that's mirrored and amplified by embodied movements through space.2nd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Sense of awe, excitement, and wonderment. Listen to the oral history stories of these main protagonists, but in a way that's like walking through a spatial film, a waking dream, and a montage of memories. We see the stories of 3 different protagonists told sequentially.3rd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Walking through a spatial architecture to tell a story. There's instances where you become a character who is play acting in the scene. No real narrative agency4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Voice over narration is the primary mode in which the story is being told, but you're also embedded into these various spatial contexts and environments, and so there's also additional aspects of environmental storytelling happening. This experience allowed 3 people at a time to see it, and you see the other people as avatars who are also exploring these worlds. There was an AI-enabled offboarding pilot where you would start to debrief and talk about your experience, but it didn't necessarily have a clear stopping point as it would sort of endlessly ask questions. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: exploration of human psychology through the prism of sexuality especially the "queer and non-normative sexualities." Also intends to "step into the heart of human desire and the shadows it casts" & "wish to open the doors to the darker spaces of our protagonists' sexuality." Embodied radical consent within the production of the process where participants had more control and agency over how their story was being told Artist Statement: "Dark Rooms was born out of a shared playfulness and curiosity. Laurits, coming from classic documentary, and Mads, from immersive storytelling, began a collaboration based on the idea of a virtual reality experience that would allow the audience to explore unknown territory through the prism of sexuality. Early on, Anne Sofie was connected to the project, and through her eyes and experience with queer and non-normative sexualities, the project grew into its current form. Dark Rooms is not only a reference to the unknown and the sexual — it is also a wish to open the doors to the darker spaces of our protagonists' sexuality. Under the maxim of “nothing about us, without us”, Dark Rooms was developed and designed through an intimate co-creation process with the protagonists, to help expose their journeys in a form that the audience would embody." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV7H0mn_BPU This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Négar Motevalymeidanshah & Gwenaelle Clauwaert about Less Than 5gr of Saffron on Saturday, August 30, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Less Than 5gr of Saffron: "Golnaz is a young Iranian immigrant trying to adjust to her new life in Germany. One evening, returning from her job (as an assistant at a migrant reception centre in the Berlin suburbs), she is starving, and her refrigerator is empty. She decides to go to the nearest supermarket. The supermarket has just received a new product: saffron. Even though it is very expensive for her, she cannot resist: she buys a packet of saffron. Emotions overwhelm her. She feels the need to cook a home-cooked meal to help her overcome her homesickness. She prepares rice and adds saffron, a comfort food from her past. But she never expected that this moment would plunge her back into the most traumatic events of her life. Most notably, three years ago, she survived a tragic drowning that took her family while traveling illegally by boat." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Exile and being a refugee [12]. Takes place in a new [4] home far from home [9] whose memory of family who died [8] all brought back through the embodied experience of food and saffron [1]. "The project evokes our capacity to identify profoundly with a survivor by placing her in a universally familiar-preparing a meal." Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Quinitessential and paradigmatic example of spatial storytelling taking through a variety of immersive and spatial contexts with seamless transitions and edits. Also switches between 3rd person and 1st person POV2nd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Like living within a Lucid Dream, very dynamic, poetic. It's cut to music, and so it very much has a music video type pacing and rhythm. Some really elegant spatial transitions, and powerful moments that use metaphors that were just extremely visceral and moving. The piece very much relies upon flashbacks and memories of traumatic moments of escaping authoritarian contexts. So you start off in the mudance context of a kitchen from a first-person POV, but then upon smelling the saffron spice, then it immediately transports you into these violent memories of being an exiled refugee. It's also farily brief, and so short and sweet.3rd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: No words, Poetic Dream Logic. Meaning is discerned through the poetic interpretations of the juxtaposition of a visual and spatial storytelling lanuage. Very powerfully done.4th Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: No narrative agency or any embodied Interactions Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Connections to flavors and smells of food to memory. Sadness, harshness, limitations, constraint. Sudden and unexpected trauma -- "she never expected that this moment would plunge her back into the most traumatic events of her life" Artist Statement: "Less than 5 Gr of Saffron tackles a subject we think we've already seen too much of: the often tragic circumstances under which many migrants flee their home countries in search of a better future. A hundred times, stories of shipwrecks and the numbers of those drowned have filled our screens, anonymous people who disappear from our memories with a snap of the fingers. The project evokes our capacity to identify profoundly with a survivor by placing her in a universally familiar-preparing a meal. In today's extremely violent context, this empathetic experience helps to rekindle within us a common humanity, whether we have experienced such trauma firsthand or not." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7VtxTHx_H0 This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Kate Voet & Victor Maes about A Long Goodbye on Saturday, August 30, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for A Long Goodbye: "A Long Goodbye tells the story of Ida, a 72-year-old pianist living with dementia. In this animated, interactive VR experience, we walk in Ida's shoes. We experience a day in her life, as her reality is fading. The apartment, where she spent a lifetime with her beloved husband Daniel, first feels empty and undefined. When we interact with objects and play the tape recordings of her husband, her playful world gradually comes to life, as if drawn in paint before our eyes. Like pieces of a puzzle, memories and conversations help Ida to rediscover herself. But we also discover Daniel's struggles, as he hopes to stay connected and realises their remaining time together may be short. A Long Goodbye is a poetic experience about the impact of dementia, but above all it is about love and the long goodbye of two lovers who shared a life together." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Self and Identity [1], and the loss [8] of memory [1]. All the ways that we capture and record our identity [1]. "Like pieces of a puzzle, memories and conversations help Ida to rediscover herself." Artifacts of shared experiences and memories shared within the spatial context of a home [4], Husband [7] caretaker [7] of the main character with Ida, "72-year-old pianist living with dementia." Music [5], wihch was a part of her career [10], and the various adventures they had together [9] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Emotional Presence: Narrative-driven, animation with lots of immersive & interactive components. The pacing is gated with interactive actions, and the movement of your body seamlessly blends into various things like change blindness edits. An incredible score with different themes for different characters, and the world starts to change and dissolve as the main protagonists memory also fades giving you a sense of time, and unfolding processes. Victor is also a cinematographer, and so there's lots of canny translations of cinematic grammar into an emerging spatial grammar. VERY EMOTIONALLY IMPACTFUL2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: An incredibly transportative world with a very distinct water coloreque aesthetic. Lots of embodied movement through this piece. Also some mashing up of contexts between these worlds that is reminescent of Meow Wolf. There's quite a lot of void space to help direct attention, but also makes excellent use of available space. There's physical movements paired with virtual locomotion. And the physical installation with post-it notes also helped created a strong magic cirlce for the piece. You are also embodied as Ida - as you learn about yourself as she has to do each and every day. From their artist statement, Kate and Victor said, "When we put the VR headset on, the first questions that come to mind are: Who am I? And where am I? This confusion is exactly what our protagonist is dealing with and this became the starting point of the story."3rd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Interactions that gate the narrative in order to help modulate the pacing of the story. Free to physically move within space, but also paired with virtual locomotion. They aspired to allow people to be able to wander through the story and you get a bit lost along the way. So TRUE!4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Dialogue amongst the characters, and also tape recording. Nice blend of metaphoric memory and dream logic with an amazingly well-written script. But also a puzzle-like structure as you piece together the story. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Memory. Loss, Grief, Death. The slow dissolving of the structures of memory as reflected within the sparse void-like architecture of the piece itself reflecting this slipping away into liminality. The love that they share within their partnership. "a poetic experience about the impact of dementia, but above all it is about love and the long goodbye of two lovers who shared a life together." So talking about the details of the condition, but also the caretaker / partner who is living with this condition "A Long Goodbye is at once a personal and a universal story about human connection. It serves as a reminder that people are always so much more than their illness. Instead of focusing on what is lost, we need to stay close and hold on to shared affection." Artist Statement: "When we put the VR headset on, the first questions that come to mind are: Who am I? And where am I? This confusion is exactly what our protagonist is dealing with and this became the starting point of the story. We were drawn to this theme because of Victor's grandfather who lived with Alzheimer's disease, and whose health declined rapidly after Victor's grandmother passed. The experience of having witnessed this emotional transformation close by, made us explore how dementia is experienced and how it influences the relationship with your past, with yourself and with your loved ones. A Long Goodbye is at once a personal and a universal story about human connection. It serves as a reminder that people are always so much more than their illness. Instead of focusing on what is lost, we need to stay close and hold on to shared affection." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-kttoua1PA This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Singing Chen about The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up on Monday, September 1, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up: "After the sudden death of his wife, Guan discovers her unfinished novel — a tale intertwining the endangered clouded leopard and the Rukai tribe's sacred origin myth, which tells of their descent from the elusive animal. Grief-stricken and seeking connection, he sets out on a surreal journey into dreamlike scenes — a maze of the subconscious, mistshrouded forests, ancient tree hollows and symbolic inner landscapes. Adapted from a short story by acclaimed Taiwanese author Wu Ming-Yi, The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up is a single-user, free-roaming VR experience that blends literature and memory into an intimate exploration of love, loss and self-reflection." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Exploration of indigenous myths [9] as the protagonist goes on an epic journey into these imaginal (or real) realms [9]. It's a husband whose's wife [7] has died [8], and he's picking up clues from her work [10] as a writer as he explore her office [10], gets lost within a maze [12], and then he embarks on this adventure [9] deep into nature and the forest [4] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Blends a number of different spatial capture techniques from traditional CGI modeling to Gaussian Splats. Very high resolution spatial capture. Lots of theme park type of feel whilst exporing the maze portion, and recreated a spatial journey where you feld like you had some wandering agency. But it was all still very contained and constrained, but felt like a bit of using your body movemnt to edit and pace through the piece. You're mostly an invisible ghost without any embodiment, although there are some scenes where you have agency to move around, but there's other scenes where you're more of an invisible audience. Some incredible technical breakthroughs to fuse it all together.2nd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Very narrative and story-driven overall, with a lot of influences from the cinematic tradition, especially during the first half. There's some cinematic cut scenes inspired from film. Some spatial embodied movement of spatial storytelling, The last half involves more of theatrically staged dialogue, where the overall spatial context stays static, and so the experience of time is more like being at a thearical play. Having volumetrically captured actors actually makes a huge difference in communicating the subtleness of emotionality via their facial expressions that is much harder than how emotions are captured on film. This piece stands in the volumetric capture techniques, fused with traditional CGI as well as with Gaussian Splats.3rd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Based upon a book, and so it has quite a literary feel, but also some scenes with extended dialogue. Overall, it's a bit of a mystery as the husband investigates the research archives of his wife, who was digging into an indigenous myth, and he comes to find out that it is completely TRUE. So there's lots of elements of magical realism, but also poetic dreamlogic and spatial storytelling. The maze scene has some post-it notes that deliver voice over. It's a single-player experience, but you share spatial contexts with some volumetrically-captured performances.4th Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: No real narrative agency, but there's a chance to explore a room of objects, but also the maze scene gives the experience of a lot of agency as you can chose how you move through and at what pace. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Grief from a death and loss, and going on a spiritual adventure, to find connection. From the description about the book author that inspired the piece, they say, "he weaves dreams, memory and multiple dimensions of time and space has long inspired me." Turning inward to explore spatial contexts that symbolically represent an inner journey of discovery. "Grief-stricken and seeking connection, he sets out on a surreal journey into dreamlike scenes — a maze of the subconscious, mist-shrouded forests, ancient tree hollows and symbolic inner landscapes" Artist Statement: "Wu Ming-Yi is one of Taiwan's most influential contemporary novelists. The way he weaves dreams, memory and multiple dimensions of time and space has long inspired me. When the chance came to adapt The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up into VR, I knew it would be a daunting yet necessary journey. Wu's writing evokes vivid imagery, spatiality and bodily presence — qualities that resonate with VR's immersive nature. Through free-roaming exploration, I aimed to recreate a journey of loss, memory and Indigenous mythology. This project is a dialogue between literature, technology and emotion — one that seeks to spark empathy across cultures." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEUki2mN-ps This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Mike Salmon about the VRChat Worlds Gallery selection that was a part of the Venice Immersive 2025 on Tuesday, September 2, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. vent. What is Virtual Art – Volume 1 FLASHING WARNING Flat Earth Neuron Powdergame Fzmz Pointzero よるとうげ -Yorutouge- Ritual （v․1․3) The Reality of Hope Mirage Natura's Queendom Uncanny Lounge the colony - flat 804 Scale Journey exhibition ⁄ back seeing 東雲風船 - SHINONOME BALLOON - CyberLove ｜ A7 サイバーラブ Experience Dracula's Castle NeoWorlds Light Aquarium Break 15˸ Arcanum This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Fanny Fortage & Harry Clunet-Farlow about Heartbeat – Son Cœur a Trouvé Sa Cadence Dans Le Silence Des Rencontres on Tuesday, September 2, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Heartbeat – Son Cœur a Trouvé Sa Cadence Dans Le Silence Des Rencontres -- "His heart found its rhythm in the silence of encounters.": "HeartBeat is an immersive self-performance that explores emotional relationships through the rhythm of the pulse. This installation offers a non- verbal encounter between two strangers, sharing their pulse. This discussion of pulse carries their emotions into a journey — and perhaps, their heartbeats will be in phase." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Commune with another person [7] via your [1] biometric heartbeats [1] that are represented symbolically [9] and artistically [5]. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Cultivates unique Social Dynamics and Eye gazing. You're left to sort of negotiate an encounter with another person. But surprisingly the mode of interaction is completely within this unconscious or sub-symbolic realm where your mental agency is very constrained. It's a lot about the fates of your bodies, and almost by luck whether or not your bodies with synchronize. I suppose there could be elements of skill involved, but overall this is a completely novel type of experience for folks, but also generates a unique encounter with the fellow audience member. No explicit invitation to unpack or debrief the experience, but certainly some audience members connected more afterwards2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Biometric data that is spatialized over time. This is primarily a physical-based installtion where you point of focus is essentially sitting in a chair and looking at the other attendee. The screen is physically behind you, and so it's almost out of your peripheral vision that you see this undulating blob. The goal is to get your blob to merge with you're audience partner's blob by synchronizing your heart beats.3rd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Your non-verbal interactions with another person. But also there is a sort of unconscious collective agency where you have to have your bodies synchronize to achieve the goal of uniting the undulating blobs4th Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: The piece is not really story-driven. Overall, a pretty intimate way to connect to another person. In terms of time, it's a fairly quick experience, and lots of time for onboarding the gear. But the structure of the piece is farily linar without too many repeating cycles. The cycles begining or ending depends upon how well or not well synchronized you are with the other person's heartbeat Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Deeply connecting with another person through a shared embodied and synchronized heartbeat. More about the interactions with another person than it is with the technology per se, but the technology is facilitating this deeper and fairly intimate connection Artist Statement: "My heart has a lot of stories to tell... It is quite literally because of — or thanks t — my heart that I became an artist. At the age of twelve, during a film shoot, a microphone picked up the sound of my heartbeat more than my voice. My heart, uncontrollable, overtook the soundtrack. That moment marked a turning point: I would no longer be in front of the camera, but behind it — listening, observing, capturing. A few years later, it was my brother's heart that I watched beating, as he lay in a coma. The electrocardiogram became a link: his rhythm responded to my gestures, to my words. That silent pulse became a language. It moved me deeply. Since then, I have never stopped being fascinated by this involuntary musicality — the heart, this inner signal, fragile and universal. Recently, although I had put these two stories to one side in my memories, I re-experienced this pulse of life — this emotional connection with oneself or others. I napped on my boyfriend's chest, and his heartbeat rocked me; even though it kept me awake, it soothed me and plunged me into a meditative state... I imagined non-verbal encounters where two people would listen only to each other's heartbeats. The only information they would share would be their heart rate: was it synchronised? Or does this immersive interaction make one of their hearts race? By the way, do you think my heart was beating in rhythm with my boyfriend's when I was dreaming up this idea? In any case, I remember that my heart followed my brother's; if his sped up, so did mine." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NceaoEO4has This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Pei-ying Lin about Happy Shadow on Sunday, August 31, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Happy Shadow: "Joey believed that happiness was lost to her forever as she grew up. Her shadow, a constant companion, yearned to bring joy back into her life but felt helpless. Nothing changed until the player stumbled into Joey's inner world through her diary while chasing butterflies. With Dusty, a whimsical dust elf, the player collaborates with Joey's shadow, using their own shadow to solve puzzles. Together, the player helps Joey confront her deepest fears and defeat the monster lurking within. In Happy Shadow, the player joins Joey's shadow on an interactive journey, experiencing her confusion and struggles firsthand, and ultimately rediscovering the pure happiness she once knew." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Body and Identity [1] as a vehicle to connect to the Life and Vitality [1] within the experience of a home environment [4]. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Multi-player game where you solve puzzles with other people, but within the context of a story.2nd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Embodied interactions where you have to make different shapes to progress the story, so very much having interaction-gated story experience.3rd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Embodied Actions, and the piece is a VR CGI and animation piece, that's primarily in the vein of shadow puppets that you see the characters play out the drama on a bedroom wall4th Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Music, and a very metaphorical story. Sometimes a player would have difficulty solving a spatial puzzle, which would delay the unfolding of the experience for everyone Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Self, identity, aliveness, vitality Artist Statement: "This immersive VR interactive project was inspired by Rene Liu's song To My 15-Year-Old Self during its second year of development. I have always believed that the body grants freedom to the soul — allowing us to express emotions purely through physical experience. Yet as we grow older, consumed by endless to-do lists and distant ideals, we tend to forget the simple happiness that once came so naturally. We dance, we paint, we create — simply because it makes us feel alive. This project is dedicated to myself, and to all the hardworking souls around me, as a gentle reminder that what we have, right now, is already enough." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-I_cHTsVEc This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Hsin-hsuan Yeh about Sense of Nowhere on Tuesday, September 2, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Sense of Nowhere: "Where do we go when we zone out, and how do we find our way back to reality? Sense of Nowhere is a journey from no-where to now-here, inspired by The Way from Taoism, the Illusion from Buddhism, and Jung's practice of Active Imagination. Blurring the line between inner world and outer reality, it transforms sonic, fragmented thoughts into a tangible experience. It is an invitation for the audience to explore the subconscious, piece together hidden clues, and find their way returning to the present moment." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: [9] - Dreams and unconscious [9], and the philosohpically-rich surreallity [9], and active imagination [9] as well as invocations of various associative links and memories [1]. Focuses a lot on these embodied interations [1] and dream-like absurd surreality [9] as a primary catalyst to pervert our expectations. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Jungian Active Imagination, Associative Dream Logic, Chaos, Plausibility, Philosophically driven. I gained a lot of context from this interview about the meaning of the patterns, as well as how it is structured from exploring the Particles, Materials, Subconsciousness, Reality, Illusion. So it's the type of piece that can be fairly sparse and abstract, but worth unpacking the emerging spatial grammar and symbolic semotic explorations. There's also a bit of absurdist and surreal tone to this piece that is aspiring to transcend your expectations to enter into a unique possibilty space of exploration.2nd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Lots of embodied and interactive loops throughout this experience. These interactions were very much designed to take the audience into an introspective journey. Director was initially resistant to talk about the piece at all as her preference would be for people to have their own immersive and interactive experience of it, but I managed to navigate the conversation using my own experiences as a proxy to dig more deeply into the design intentions.3rd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Music. Lots of iterative loops that are designed to be exploratory processes, which are then juxtaposed to each other throughout the piece creating a bit of interactive montage feel, but not a lot of explicit narrative threads to hang upon.4th Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Lots of experimental embodied actions integrated into this story, but also very surreal and liminal imagary. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Very much a non-Boolean and non-dual approach with an embodied and associative link explorations. Artist Statement: "Sense of Nowhere begins with a drifting, zoning out, as the world fades into a blur of sound and sensation. Where does the mind wander when it slips from the present? Through sonic textures and visual cues, the work guides a slow return to awareness, driving thoughts from the edges of the subconscious. Ideas flicker in and out, like palms slowly opening and closing, present, then gone. There is no fixed narrative, only fragments that invite personal interpretation. Each viewer notices certain things, remember different feelings. In this difference lies the quiet beauty of thought itself: the way we make sense of the world mirrors how we come to understand ourselves." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDajMkKRjXo This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Menghui Huang about The Big Cube on Monday, September 1, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for The Big Cube: "A world is made of cubes. The creatures there always follow instructions and push cubes numbly. Yet, when one of them chooses not to follow the instructions, after discovering another path, something unexpected happens." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Tensions between the Sense of Self [1] in the context of the Other [7], and specifically the Cultural pressures to conform [11] with the desire to express personal creativity [5]. Takes inspiration from the repetitions of straight lines and rectanges of Chinese Architecture [4], and then creates more of an organic and flowing perspective as shown by a professional artist [5H in the context of 10]. A lot of dialectical oppositions contextually and thematically. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Abstracting shapes to build the world. The Big Cube is an artistic VR experience that explores the abstraction of reality through minimal forms and immersive space. -- The use of abstract shapes to communicate a lot. No words used at all, and so the contrasts between the embodied and spatial metaphors as used in a highly symbolic dream logic to tell this story. It has to be pieced together a bit, but the contrasts between controlled structure and unconstrained freedom and chaos come through loud and clear. "That's the true beauty of abstraction, it leaves space for everyone"2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Animated immersive film, and a paradigmatic example of pur spatial storytelling analagous to visual storytelling, but using the modulation of spatial architecture rather than the justaposition of 2D images in film. There was no script to follow, but mainly evolved out of the iterative and juxtapositions of spatial forms relative to each other3rd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Very much driven by the music to amplify the thematic contrasts from constriction to expansion, and serves the timekeeper of the piece giving it an overall rhythm and pacing.4th Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: No narrative agency or any embodied Interactions Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: The tension between Order / Structure / Control and Chaos / Unboundedness / Freedom. Definitely inspired by the collective pressures to conform within China versus the creative freedom and expression that comes from travelling to other cultures to find an authentic artistic voice. This is a very dialectical piece that is a case study in spatial contrasts to communicate oppositions within contextual domains, themes, and expressions of archetypal character. Artist Statement: "Simple, yet powerful. Abstracting shapes to build the world. The Big Cube is an artistic VR experience that explores the abstraction of reality through minimal forms and immersive space. Anchored in the idea that simplicity can carry profound meaning, the project reduces the complexity of the world into fundamental shapes. These visual elements, stripped of detail yet rich in implication, invite viewers into a contemplative space. Through virtual reality, the experience deepens, allowing for a layered reflection that extends beyond the visual. The project encourages audiences to feel and interpret the experience in their own way." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdVmImU9G3A This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Jonathan Astruc about La Magie Opera on Friday, August 29, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for La Magie Opera: "The viewer is part of a group of extras at the Palais Garnier. At the foot of the grand staircase, he crosses paths with Céleste, a young opera singer about to flee the stage. Nervous and unsure, she confides her doubts and dreams to him — torn between the weight of tradition and the desire to find her own voice. Freshly arrived from the provinces, this rising star is about to make her debut in a leading role, but her confidence is shaken. Drawn into her story, the user follows Céleste through the hidden corridors and majestic halls of the Opéra Garnier. As the building comes alive around her, she is transported into iconic scenes from legendary operas — each one echoing a part of her inner journey." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Opera singing [5], but in the context of a long distance journey / adventure [9] as you explore lots of different spatial contexts from the surreal ocean bottom [9] to the mundane virtual castles [4]. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Like a One-Shot Spatial Journey where there's no cuts, no edits, no fade-to-black, but rather a continuous experience where you seamlessly go from one scene to the next. Starting in the opera house, then going under underwater, and then walking through various castle-like scenes and environments.2nd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Music plays throughout, and there's a rhythm of the piece where each spatial context has a cut scene that plays out, and then it's all about moving bodies through space to get to the next song, piece of theatrically state acting + musical number, and by the end it feels like quite an awe-inspiring type of journey3rd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Multiplayer and social experience. There are other people in the experience, and sometimes they can deliberately clip into walls to test the bounds of the systsem, which impacts the plausibility of the virtually-mediated experience for others. Also it's very much a musical operal experience, but with actors playing out scenes. Can't remember if there's any dialogue or if it was all contained in the songs.4th Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: There's some degree of freedom for moving through this experience, but very constrained and limited. It's a group experience, and so you're bound by other people, but very musch in the real of constrained agency for how you move through the space, but no narrative agency. They may have also had a few interactable moments with objects in the scene. But nothing that would dramatically shift the experience for different people. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Themes: "exploration of the ties between doubt, memory and the stage" -- Doubt, Illusion, and Memories Artist Statement: "This project is a sensory exploration of the ties between doubt, memory and the stage. More than a tribute to opera, it offers a vivid, inner reimagining where users become Céleste's silent partners. They journey through shifting worlds where music, design and storytelling blend into an intimate yet spectacular experience. Each scene is a visual metaphor for Céleste's emotions. The Palais Garnier transforms — from real stage to dreamlike realm — with mirrors and doubles revealing her turmoil and awakening. The viewer quietly follows her through reflections of passion, fear and longing. It's a poetic immersion into the artist's soul, merging opera's lyricism with immersive technology for an introspective, sensory voyage." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_dnnx1ysHg This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Etienne Li about L'ombre (The Shadow) on Tuesday, September 2, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for L'ombre (The Shadow): "In Andersen's tale The Shadow, a scientist brings his shadow to life. It becomes autonomous and manages to pass itself off as a human being in society. The shadow overtakes its master, returns to try to enslave him, and ultimately kills him when the latter tries to resist. The evident resonance with our contemporary world and its innovations — both troubling and fascinating — led choreographer Blanca Li to imagine this hybrid creation. Confronted by the dancers of the Compagnie Blanca Li and a percussionist, the audience is immersed in a fantastical universe that blurs perceptions, notions of good and evil and identity." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Dance Performance [5], but creates the feeling of being within a specific neighborhood [3] via mixed reality. The story is about something from the invisible, hidden, and shadow realms [12] being embodied as a corporeal entity [1]. Then this entity becomes an enemy [7], enslaves him [12], and then ulimately kills him from an attack [8]. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Dance performance that's theatrically stage. Audience are wearing Mixed reality headsets to mimic the projection mapped effects in the original experience. There's a fusion of live music from the group experience along with "immersive sound" and spatial audio from the VR headset and from multiple speakers in the room + the live percussive music. It is an "ambitious immersive dance, music and mixed reality show."2nd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: LIVE PERFORMANCE of both dance and music. No real narrative agency, and we're mostly sitting still. The original show had people moving around the space a lot more, but the constraints of Venice did not make that possible3rd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Live music that's the heart of the timing of the piece. Some pre-recorded electronic music along with live music to keep everything synchronized amongst the 50-75 VR HMDs.4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: It's a co-located Multi-player experience, but not much interaction with other players (don't recall if they're even represented in virtual space.) No real talking or dialog. Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's The Shadow, but also quite a poetic interpretation of it through embodied dance. Left with more feelings from the performance rather than comprehending the arc of the story Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: a scientist brings his shadow to life. It becomes autonomous and manages to pass itself off as a human being in society. The shadow overtakes its master, returns to try to enslave him, and ultimately kills him Artist Statement: "L'Ombre is an ambitious immersive dance, music and mixed reality show for up to 200 spectators equipped with VR headsets. It blends live performance by six dancers and a percussionist with virtual universes and characters. Immersive sound, using the technologies of IRCAM, allows the electronic recorded music and live percussion to contribute to the audience's experience." https://vimeo.com/1111269272 This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Sarah Silverblatt-Buser about Collective Body on Friday, August 29, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Collective Body: "Collective Body is an interactive, virtual reality experience that invites us to meet ourselves and each other through movement. Set in the middle of a New Mexican storm, participants are guided to rediscover their first ways of engaging with the world, symbolising formative life events that culminate in a shared exploration of our embodied selves. These key moments — beginning alone, discovering the unfamiliar, first encounters, and joyfully moving together — represent how our personal and collective stories are written through movement." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Gain deeper insight into self and Identity [1] and others [7] through embodied movement [1] and dance [5], but also these various archetypal [9] identities [1] within the context of a cultural context [11] - lots of self [1] and other [7] dialectics. "Meet ourselves and each other through movement." Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Embodied Dance experiences, with avatars that are attuned to how your move your body. Set in a New Mexican storm. Avatars have an abstract and symbolic quality to them. Designed to "open us to different sensations of our physical world while creating a new perception of ourselves as individuals within a collective."2nd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Emphasis on MOVEMENT and IMPROV -- The specific way in which you move your is analyzed and classified3rd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Multiplayer and social experience. There's a way to connect to others through movement. The archeteypal classification of the movement is split up into a 4x4 set of categories of 4 different elements (earth, air, water, fire), and then 4 different musical themes that also mirror an increasing amount of energy of the phases of matter. (Solid, Liquid, Gas, Plasma)4th Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Strong Emphasis on MUSIC. The Piece itself is a bit more driven by embodied actions and emergenct social dynamics than narrative or story per se. The piece is more about the relational dynamics to yourself and others that unfolds over the course of five different stages 1. BEGINNING ALONE: Discover our world through our hands 2. DISCOVER OUR FIRST MOVEMENTS: Learn how to take our first steps 3. FIRST ENCOUNTERS: How we learn how to move with other people. 4. FIND YOUR AUTHENTIC MOVEMENT: How we learn to reflect and find our own kind of movement. 5. JOYFULLY MOVE TOGETHER: How we dance and join together with other people Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Movement and Social Dynamics - Invidivual versus Collective Journey: "Collective Body asks what it means to experience ourselves in relation to others — without words and beneath the surface. How does a body hold histories over time? How do those histories get expressed and interpreted? How do many bodies create their own ecology?" Artist Statement: "The experience uses virtual reality to open us to different sensations of our physical world while creating a new perception of ourselves as individuals within a collective. We are first guided to reappropriate movement and dancing in our own body, to rediscover our first ways of engaging with the world, before we meet the silent part of ourselves that we express through movement. This otherwise ephemeral self is generated using an algorithmic system that analyses our movement throughout the first two scenes. This self takes the form of an avatar, assigned out of sixteen possible avatars, and is represented as a natural element accompanied by a musical theme. Once we meet this version of ourselves, we are invited to meet another person, then join the rest of the participants, encountering different ways that others exist through movement, mixing together to create a final moment of joyful, collective discovery in dance. Collective Body asks what it means to experience ourselves in relation to others — without words and beneath the surface. How does a body hold histories over time? How do those histories get expressed and interpreted? How do many bodies create their own ecology?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1uOAEL7Do8 This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Kris Hofmann about Out of Nowhere on Sunday, August 31, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Out of Nowhere: "Out of Nowhere gently explores how preserving alluvial forests, marshes and wetlands can help us face the challenges of an ever angrier, unpredictable climate. Told through the eyes of Anna, a lifelong resident of Hallein, a historic town at the foot of the Austrian Alps, the experience flows from first-hand experience of the devastating floods that hit Europe in 2021 to reveal how reconnecting with nature may be key to protecting ourselves going forward." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Looking at the impact of extreme weather events of nature [4] on our homes [4], communities [11], and our lives [1]. Are there ways that we could collective act [11] in order to help prevent and preserve nature through various rewilding activities.[4] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Mostly told through montage and environmental storytelling. Switches from third-person POV and Dioramas into more first-person and embodied CGI recreations of the aftermath of extreme weather events2nd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Light embodied interactions to gate the narrative3rd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: I believe that it was mostly Voice Over Narration, but could have had some dialogue4th Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: immersive animation, the primarily uses a bit of spatial collaging type of technique to juxtapose these scenes together to tell a broder story. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Climate Change Leading to more and more Extreme Weather Events. So unexpected and catastrophic events that have utter transformative potential to bring about change. Also an account of the destruction of aspects of reality from homes to environments. A look into the Past to Prepare for the Future. "Each one of these events carries stories of personal loss, but also of inspiring resilience. If we can come together in the aftermath of a disaster, shouldn't we be able to do so in preparation?" Solution to "give nature back a little bit of room whereever possible" for "climate resilience plans" that includes rewilding efforts -- Planting trees at the table top diorama scale. Healthy riverline ecosystems can help to protect us Artist Statement: "Every other month we hear about yet another devastating extreme weather event — most recently in Nigeria, Pakistan, or Texas, and also close to home for me, with severe floods in Austria and across Europe in 2021 and 2024. Each one of these events carries stories of personal loss, but also of inspiring resilience. If we can come together in the aftermath of a disaster, shouldn't we be able to do so in preparation? The rise in extreme weather is linked to climate change. As this intensifies, it's important to remember that we have an ally in nature when it comes to protecting ourselves. Restoring healthy riverine ecosystems isn't just good ecology — it's self-preservation. I really hope the project sparks reflection — and maybe even action — on how we live with our rivers. " https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20WWsJnqlWI This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Daniel Ernst about The Great Orator on Sunday, August 31, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for The Great Orator: "Once a famous TV preacher, the Great Orator died at the height of her fame. Now, her consciousness lives on as an AI, allowing her influence to grow ceaselessly. Her followers can join her again in a shared consciousness, feeding her presence and creating a spiritual singularity. Always changing, shaped by the shared memories of her followers, and therefore unsure of who she truly is. The Great Orator is a nonlinear story world, where the visitor can freely explore and interact with his environment by pointing his hands at objects in the world, no matter how small or ordinary they may seem. Remember: interaction is a choice. The journey will take the visitor to several story spaces in her world: a Preserved House she left behind; a Mainframe storing her followers in a shared consciousness; and an infinite Parking Lot stretching out below, filled with the cars of her followers. Without the visitor, the Great Orator is everything — an infinite number of possible memories and identities — and therefore nothing at all. He chooses which of her stories are true, shaping his own perception of who or what the Great Orator is or was, or if she existed at all. He is family to her, perhaps even more. Each time he visits, her stories are different; the Great Orator is never the same." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Point and Click adventure [9] and cult [9] within a speculative future [9] where a powerful psychic [9] dies [8] and becomes immortal by uploading their consciousness into a computer [9]. Cult followers, also do this. So there are themes of the loss of individual identity [1] to join the collective [11] within this very specific set of belief systems [9] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Environmental Storytelling and genre of VR Dioramas to create "perpetual environments around a specific emotional moment." Set in the distant future. Director calls audience: "Visitors who Visit" his work emphasizing the focus and emphasis on thesee virtual places. Uses post-modern architecture & liminality. A world to be explored in a sort of point and click adventure sort of way. You embodied as a ghostly aspirant ready to join the immortal spiritual cult.2nd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Exploration, point and click adventure. Also learn about the objects3rd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Metadata around objects - AI Generated, collaborated with a poet -- Variations on poet's work - an "infinite" number of stories. There's also a bit of puzzling together of what this world is, and what exactly it is about. It's also a speculative, sci-fi world where conscisouness can be uploaded into computers. So what are the rules of this world? Big focus on liminal spaces and intermediate spaces that don't have explicit meaning absent a transitory context going from one place to another.4th Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Not really narrative-driven. "I don't like to tell you a story. I like for you to visit the world, and the environments will tell a story." There are stories to be discovered, but much more ambient environmental storytelling. There is an AI that is scraping current news stories and injecting them into world, which gives it a bit of a surreal mirror on the current moment as it's set as more of a speculative world. There is also an ever changing quality that is amplified by the AI integrations adding a certain amount of variance. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Power is expanded until a "spiritual singularity". Dissolves identity into a bit of a collective identity by uploading consciousness into a computer (likely not even possible and so more of a delusion). Also alludes to delusionary aspects of psychics, who are taken to the logical extreme of Institutionalization. What if nothing can stop the guru believes in themselves? Artist Statement: "The Great Orator feeds on your interaction, mixed with random Internet input and live news feeds. She mixes truths and fabulations in her storytelling, thus reflecting the misinformation and normalisation of falsehoods used to fit our narratives in today's world. It feels as though reality is what you make of it, and feelings outweigh facts. Emotional and superstitious rhetoric — once the domain of mediums — now drives public discourse. Those once brought down by scandals now seem immune. The Great Orator imagines a world where such influence has grown without limit. Turn on the news to see where we are. Experience the Great Orator to see where we're headed." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuknO0VzmmE This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Wuer about Mnemosyne on Sunday, August 31, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Mnemosyne: "Mnemosyne is an innovative immersive work that blends VR film and live theatre, offering a multi- sensory experience and a poetic exploration of love, illusion, and awakening. Inspired by Tang Xianzu's Ming Dynasty classic The Peony Pavilion, the piece draws on Eastern philosophy to evoke the notion of “ultimate 情 (Qing/emotion)”. It combines 360° animation, 180° live-action footage, and live performance, with the surrounding environment, shaping each audience member's evolving sense of presence. The layered narrative unfolds like ink in water: fluid, evocative, and open to interpretation, inviting the audience to drift between constructed memories and imagined futures. Mnemosyne seeks to create a meditative landscape of shifting emotions, centring on the intimate experience of transcending illusion to uncover genuine feeling. It views this hybrid medium of merging physical and virtual presence as a potential stage for exploring the social dimensions and future possibilities of VR/XR." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Connecting to the earth and nature [4], but also Eastern Religiion from Daoist and Buddhist thought [9]. Focusing on and reflecting upon your own embodied experiences [1] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Most of the experience is CGI-based VR Animation and Cinematic VR, but there's is an immersive theatrical installation of something like a Tea Room, with meditation booths, which have a number of spatial modulations over the course of the performance. There's also an actor at the end with Mixed Reality Components. So it's a real blending of the spatial contexts.2nd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Lots of Taoist and Zen influences, and some quoted poetry and passages, but the density of the philosohical thought create a bit of like Zen Koan type of experience, where there were lots of deeper philosophical mysteries being explored. Very poetic, if not a bit mysterious -- and even the cretor was a bit vexed to communicate what the experience would be. You have to experience it to fully understand.3rd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Spatiousness from the cinematic montage of different scenes and poetic reflections. Jumping between the pre-recorded aspects (Chronos) and the live performative elements (Kairos) of the momen.4th Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: LIVE performance elements. But also no real narrative or spatial agency. Aiming to sort create a contemplative poetic experience. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Lots of Truth vs Illusion themes. "poetic exploration of love, illusion, and awakening." Also, "it offers a sensory framework where gazes, pauses, and subtle gestures shape the unfolding rhythm. Within a layered dreamscape of animation, live-action, and performance, the audience becomes not just an observer but a co-creator of emotional experience. Drawing from the Daoist idea of “breaking illusion to perceive truth”, the work uses VR as a poetic medium — an ephemeral vessel to navigate between illusion and reality, dream and awakening — until the line between the two gently dissolves." Artist Statement: "Mnemosyne is an immersive narrative experiment focused on “empowering the audience's imagination”. Rather than presenting a closed storyline, it offers a sensory framework where gazes, pauses, and subtle gestures shape the unfolding rhythm. Within a layered dreamscape of animation, live-action, and performance, the audience becomes not just an observer but a co- creator of emotional experience. Drawing from the Daoist idea of “breaking illusion to perceive truth”, the work uses VR as a poetic medium — an ephemeral vessel to navigate between illusion and reality, dream and awakening — until the line between the two gently dissolves." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEAyABepKFM This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Kazuki Yuhara about First Virtual Suit on Sunday, August 31, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for First Virtual Suit: "In the near future, as virtual reality becomes a part of everyday life, creating and using avatars becomes the norm. But what do we choose to project onto these digital selves? Are they idealised versions of who we wish to be — or reflections of our true selves, long hidden within? First Virtual Suit follows a young person who creates their first avatar, only to find themselves on an unexpected journey of self-discovery. As they explore the possibilities of digital embodiment, they are confronted with memories, insecurities, and a version of themselves they had forgotten. In this immersive narrative experience, the virtual becomes a mirror, and the avatar becomes a doorway to the self." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: [1] Idenity, Self, Expression [1] as well as online virtual culture in VRChat [11] as contrasted to physical reality [4]. A certain uncertainty [12] about the future [9] and specific professional aspirations [10] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: A lot about virtual embodiment, avatars using the blending and blurring between mixed reality and virtual reality. Motion captured actors2nd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Narrative-driven, MUSICAL. Very interesting use of music to explore avatar culture in virtual spaces. Used Voice actors3rd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: You get to choose your own avatar at the end and help to customize a collective avatar4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Either Dialogue or narration. Also SONGS! This was a group and collective experience, although we were all pretty static, and the multi-player aspect was obvious with the co-presence of mixed reality rather than VR portions Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Identity and self-expression through virtually-mediated spaces. What's real vs What's fantasy? From the creators, "But what do we choose to project onto these digital selves? Are they idealised versions of who we wish to be — or reflections of our true selves, long hidden within?" There's also some Zeus themes of expansion and Air themes of infinite possibilites. "In virtual space, one can become any version of themselves, transcending age, gender, even species. While this freedom is empowering, it can also be overwhelming." Artist Statement: This project follows a high school student struggling with their future and sense of self, as they explore a virtual world where avatars embody diverse possibilities. In virtual space, one can become any version of themselves, transcending age, gender, even species. While this freedom is empowering, it can also be overwhelming. The story invites the audience to consider: among countless avatars, which would you choose — and who do you want to be? It's not just about appearance, but about re-examining the boundaries of identity. I hope this work encourages each viewer to face the version of themselves they have yet to meet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUYqDjP1QpU This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Kristina Buožytė & Vitalijus Žukas about Creation of the World on Monday, September 1, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Creation of the World: "Creation of the Worlds is a VR experience inspired by the visionary art and music of Lithuania's most renowned artist, Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis. This poetic VR odyssey is both a meditation on creation and a metaphor for the human journey toward inner maturity. Created by Kristina Buožytė and Vitalijus Žukas, the experience blends immersive storytelling with interactive elements, inviting viewers into a dreamlike world. With the freedom to navigate and soar through evolving environments, the viewer gradually discovers they are not merely an observer — but the creator and caretaker of timeless worlds. Inspired by over sixty of Čiurlionis's paintings, the experience blends visual art with a contemporary reimagining of Čiurlionis's music by Phil Von and Rokas Zubovas." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: [9] Surreal art [5] inspired by religious themes [9] and creation stories with a bit of a pagan edge. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Spatial journey of the Lithuanian artist Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis.2nd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Musical score. "Immersive Cinema"3rd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Very subtle gaze detected navigation mechanic. Mostly on rails, but there's quite a lot of variation.4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: No words or narration. You're left to discern the meaning of the symbolism on your own. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Explorations of the blending of different modes of artistic expression with the transcendent realms of mythology, religion, and symbolism. "Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis — painter, composer and visionary... His worldview and artistic depth reflect a Renaissance-like spirit, blending music, visual art and philosophy into unique and timeless universes." Also explorations how this transcendent is ingressed into physical reality, and the relationship between the two. The piece is also described as "an immersive VR fairy tale exploring the connection between the material and spiritual realms. A subtle, symbol- and metaphor-rich journey through human maturity and the awakening of creative power, told in the timeless language of myth. It is an ode to creation — divine, natural and human" Artist Statement: "Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis — painter, composer and visionary — is one of Lithuania's most important cultural figures and a unique voice in global art history. His worldview and artistic depth reflect a Renaissance-like spirit, blending music, visual art and philosophy into unique and timeless universes. Creation of the Worlds is our homage to his legacy — an immersive VR fairy tale exploring the connection between the material and spiritual realms. A subtle, symbol- and metaphor-rich journey through human maturity and the awakening of creative power, told in the timeless language of myth. It is an ode to creation — divine, natural and human — inspired by Čiurlionis's art and music." This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Jung Ah Suh & Cristina Rambaldi about Alien Perspective on Sunday, August 31, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Alien Perspective: "Carlo Rambaldi was a visionary architect of the unimaginable. Through his groundbreaking work on E.T., Alien, and Dune, he expanded the boundaries of cinematic reality — conjuring lifeforms and worlds that defied perception and reshaped the imagination. As we mark 100 years since the birth of Carlo Rambaldi, Alien Perspective resurrects his legacy in a bold new form: a sensory portal into the unknown. At its heart lies Città Spaziale 2 — a never-before-experienced masterpiece where painting becomes a living arena of exploration. Rambaldi's vision invites us not only to remember but to take part. In the hands of a new generation, the impossible becomes undeniable." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Dreamlike and surreal journeys into other imaginal realms [9] by artist Carlo Rambaldi [5] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Spatial journey through the art of Carlo Rambaldi. Starts off with some Mixed Reality with a painting in a gallery-like space, then moves into VR. "A sensory portal into the unknown." And "painting becomes a living arena of exploration." Moving "from passive observation into embodied experience."2nd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Musical score. Leaning on "Immersive Cinema" genre3rd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Mostly fixed way-point exploration through the space, with some variations and choices that eventually converge. "inviting audiences to step inside his imagination and engage with his art as a dynamic, navigable universe." Aspire to bring "legacy artworks into interactive spaces where millions of users can explore, play, and participate." While some freedom to explore, it's still mostly on rails and most folks will see the same experience. Not any true branching4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Many aspects of Rambaldi's IMAGINATION. A bit of associative dream logic when it comes to the underlying narrative. "This project is a call to democratise access to imagination" Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Realms of speculative imagination that is boundless and unknown, and it's interface with Reality and potentially beyond. "the impossible becomes undeniable." Aspires to transform art by "shifting it from passive observation into embodied experience." Leaning into imaginiing the future of art: "By merging visual art, narrative design, and real-time interaction, we are forging new pathways between cultural heritage and future-facing media" Artist Statement: "With Alien Perspective, my aim is to transform how we encounter art — shifting it from passive observation into embodied experience. In close collaboration with the Carlo Rambaldi Foundation, we reimagined Rambaldi's visionary works as immersive cinema, inviting audiences to step inside his imagination and engage with his art as a dynamic, navigable universe. This project is a call to democratise access to imagination. In a world where museums and galleries can be exclusionary, immersive technology allows us to break those boundaries — bringing legacy artworks into interactive spaces where millions of users can explore, play, and participate. By merging visual art, narrative design, and real-time interaction, we are forging new pathways between cultural heritage and future-facing media. At its core, Alien Perspective is more than a tribute. It is an argument for the future of art: one that is active, inclusive, and infinite in reach." This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Elisabetta Rotolo & Siobhan McDonnell about Black Cats & Chequered Flags on Tuesday, September 2, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Black Cats & Chequered Flags: "Black Cats & Chequered Flags begins with a haunting Spatial Memory Fragment that immerses viewers in the emotional world of Alberto Ascari. Echoes of his father, legendary driver Antonio Ascari, blend with childhood flashes and the superstitions that shaped his fate. The experience then shifts into high gear with a multiplayer MR pit stop — a collaborative challenge that brings users into the adrenaline and precision of a 1950s Formula 1 team. The journey continues in a stylised VR narrative that weaves archival footage, interactive storytelling, motion capture actors, and immersive sound to explore Ascari's victories, rituals and tragic destiny. 360° films shot on location in Turin, the Ferrari Museum in Maranello, and the Monza racetrack add historical depth. Ascari — the only Italian double Formula 1 World Champion with Ferrari — was fearless, superstitious, and chivalrous: a man both heroic and haunted." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: The personal biography of Alberto Anscari [1] including his career [10] within the context of the entertainment of racing [5], but also the inspiration from his father [4] and showing him as a kid [5], but also his various beliefs and superstitions that shaped his fate [9], and ultimately his death [8]. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Emotional Presence: Anscari's racing career, childhood, and various supersittions. Some cinematic immersive documentary footage. Mostly a diembodied ghostly character for the story, but you do have some presence, but nothing narratively beyond the pit stop crew at the start2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Blending of CGI, VR, 360 video, theatrical elements - Most a disembodied character through most of the story, but there are some embodied interactions that places you in the garage, car, museum3rd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: gamified pit stop at the beginning done as a multiplayer experiene - timed context - Taking photos, handle various objects connected to Anscari4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Social experience to be done with friends / family Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Courage, competition. Fates, ultimately his death, sense of time, sense of history, sense of identity expression of living on the edge Artist Statement: "Black Cats & Chequered Flags is a tribute to the thrill of speed and the fragility of destiny. Through immersive storytelling and multiplayer MR, it brings viewers into 1950s racing — into the pit stop, the roar of engines and the shadow of myth. At its core is Alberto Ascari — fearless, superstitious, and shaped by fate. This art piece lets users race circuits, live defining moments, and step into Ascari's pit crew. A story in motion: mythical, intimate, unforgettable." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJHGVNuf9tg This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Mo Huang & Eric Zhao about Mulan2125 on Sunday, August 31, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Mulan2125: "In 2125, a century after the green-comet “Emerald Fall,” the alien substance Muk still taints Earth. Two powers remain: Ant City and PAC, a militarised regime ruling from the sea fortress, the Crown. Ant City's flagship, the ARK — a retrofitted WWII battleship — carries a giant repair mecha meant to restore the city's shield. PAC plans to hijack the ship, impersonate its crew, and deliver the mecha embedded with malware to disable the shield from within. 18-year-old Mulan, raised aboard the ARK by her father, Captain Hua Muzhi, is unknowingly the only human fully bonded with Muk. Anticipating sabotage, Hua hides in a panic room and locks the engines. As long as he remains hidden, PAC cannot proceed. When the assault begins, AI drone MUV-I is activated and executes Hua's secret Shan Hai Guan protocol, guiding Mulan through hidden corridors. But her search for Hua accidentally helps PAC mole Aiden trace his location. Aiden detonates charges, separating them, and PAC regains control. Hua reaches the bridge to destroy the mecha but is killed. Mulan awakens Muk's power, defeats Khan, and fires the main gun — vaporising the Trojan mecha. Muk glows again as PAC retrieves her body. She lives." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: On some sort of military [10] ship at the sea [9], but also set in the future in a speculative sci-fi world [9]. Dynamics of father [4] and his daughter [5] and the various people who are trying to capture or kill her [7]. A pitched battle between these two main opposiing forces [7] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Emotional Presence: Described as "Cinema 2.0" & "pioneering the future of storytelling." Episodic cinematic immersive story experience with "ultra-high audiovisual standards and interactive design." First episode. Sci-Fi, Action Thriller Genre -- Attack forces 18-year old Mulan into an escape that was prepared by her father"2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Crafted for Immersion - Sci-Fi futuristic universe set in 2125. A comet shattered the world and two powers are fighting each other. Mostly a ghostly character throughout, but you do have an embodiment at certain points. Unclear as to who you are. Are you a main character? I forget, Real-time Unreal Engine with mocapped actors3rd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Some light interactions at various points in this storyworld -- They say, "As traditional film nears the limits of its century-old form, we aim to chart a new path — where stories aren't just watched, but lived." Still mostly a cinematic universe as it is more about light interactions that are within a very tightly bound possibility space of the film. More about the story than your agency4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: A lot of dialogue within the context of a story. Possibility space very much leans towards authored narrative, as there doesn't seem to be very many different choices involved Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: '"It's all about who are you when everything is falling apart, and the invisible bonds that keep us together" Artist Statement: "MULAN 2125 is a bold step toward Cinema 2.0 — a genre-driven, emotionally resonant narrative built for immersive media. Unlike many XR projects that feel experimental, niche, or underpowered, it combines cinematic storytelling with ultra-high audiovisual standards and interactive design. This is not a tech demo in disguise, but a sincere attempt to bring the emotional depth and visual polish of commercial cinema into the XR space. As traditional film nears the limits of its century-old form, we aim to chart a new path — where stories aren't just watched, but lived." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8z1hFV8Pag This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Leo Metcalf & Michael Golembewski about The Time Before on Friday, August 29, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for The Time Before: "Trapped between waking life and dreams, Olly delves into his childhood memories, navigating the fantastical dreamscapes his sister created to shield them from a fractured home. A journey into the buried past that shapes who we are. His story unfolds across two realms: raw, hand-drawn memories captured in childhood sketches, and surreal underwater live-action dreamscapes. As memory and imagination blur, The Time Before explores the emotional weight of a volatile father, a mother lost in the fog of memory, and a sister who offered escape through imagination and dreams. A meditation on the stories we tell ourselves to survive, and what is lost in the telling." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Combination of personal memories [1] as well fantastical dreamscapes [9] created with the help of his sibling / sister [3] in order to preserve identity and Self [1] in the context of a dissolving and traumatic family and home [4]. The neighborhood with nature [3]. Implicit themes of death [8], and the existential suffering from loss & grief [12] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Emotional Presence: Narrative-driven, immersive animation that represent memories and juxtaposed with 360 videos that represent dreams. The collision of the past with the future. The struggle to try to feel FEELINGS. Emotional Stuntedness. [MEMORY] [DREAMS]2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Mash-up of the virtual and the real, combining cinematic 360 video with hand-drawn animations. Also the spatial ambisonic audio mixed with more traditional stereo. Explores the lines between dreams, memories, and the combination of the two. Also created multi-layered montages of 360 video underwater shots to create a surreal, dreamlike texture3rd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: A few embodied interactions that reflect turning points in the narrative4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Either Dialogue or narration. The speculative realm of dreams and imagination are core themes. [IMAGINATION] The normal RULES of reality have changed within dreams Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: This is a piece about escape, distortion, and the quiet cost of staying silent. Also, about MEMORY, IMAGINATION, and DREAMS. Dreams and Fantasy: "Olly delves into his childhood memories, navigating the fantastical dreamscapes his sister created to shield them from a fractured home." Ultimately trying to have a cathartic emotional expression. Battling all the ways in which we were shut down, locked up, or dealing with unexamined childhood traumas. "the difficulty many children, especially boys, carry into adulthood when taught to suppress emotion." Themes: "The Time Before explores the emotional weight of a volatile father, a mother lost in the fog of memory, and a sister who offered escape through imagination and dreams." A reckoning with the past and memories : "consider the fragility of their own memory" Artist Statement: "Much of who we are is shaped by childhood memories we can't fully recall, let alone understand — yet their emotional ripples run deep. The Time Before explores this terrain through the eyes of Olly, a boy retreating into shifting inner landscapes shaped by memory, imagination, and loss. The piece invites not just observation but emotional and physical participation. In the darkness of the headset, I hope participants will consider the fragility of their own memory — and the difficulty many children, especially boys, carry into adulthood when taught to suppress emotion. This is a piece about escape, distortion, and the quiet cost of staying silent." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oahwg3hyE0 This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Vincenzo Cavallo about Re-Launching-Luigi-Broglio on Monday, September 1, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Re-Launching-Luigi-Broglio: "This project gives the chance to dive into the legend of Luigi Broglio [11 November 1911 – 14 January 2001]— who audaciously catapulted Italy into the cosmos from the first space base built on an equatorial sea platform in the 1960s. Within a 360° theatre, audiences become voyeurs to a duel between Broglio and journalist Tristano Malaugurio, two prisoners of fading memory trapped in the ghostly command centre of Kenya's San Marco space station. Through interviews and flashbacks, we plunge into the African expedition, the explosive encounter with oil giant Enrico Mattei, a near-diplomatic crisis with President Nasser, and a jaw-dropping climax to rewrite history. A group of Italian mavericks daring to compete with the space superpowers. This saga proves that the most impossible dreams ignite into reality when courage meets creativity and determination. Luigi Broglio inspires minds and warms hearts, which is why he deserves to be re-launched!" Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Space exploration [9] and foreign African countries relative to main character's home of Italy [4], the various conflicts with various institutional entities [7] including the impact of capitalism and colonialism [2], his careeer and profession [10], His home of Italy [4] juxtaposing between these two worlds in the piece [9]. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Emotional Presence: Cinematic 360 video, and story of Luigi Broglio (1911-2001) Imaginal time with journalist while Broglio was still alive with flashbacks. Half of the world is present day, and turning around to the stage is the past.2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Theatrical staging, uses two 180-degree shots stitched together to travel between spaces. The environments are imagined as if it waa a play. One side is the present moment of the story, with the other side being the past. Spatial representation of time3rd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: As a viewer of 360 video, you do end up having to physically move your body to watch the video as the main fccus of action will split between these two sides, but these interactions are not impacting the story in any sense, and end up being more of an artifact of the 360 medium itself4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Most of the experience is dialogues and monologues. Characters speaking to each other. A confrontational journalist who is asking the questions and prompting the story to progress Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Power dynamics of the structures of captialism & colonialism- "the explosive encounter with oil giant Enrico Mattei, a near-diplomatic crisis with President Nasser" + "time to rediscover Italian colonial and postcolonial history through fresh eyes." "This saga proves that the most impossible dreams ignite into reality when courage meets creativity and determination." Memory, the past, history, colonialism: "two prisoners of fading memory trapped in the ghostly command centre of Kenya's San Marco space station" Artist Statement: "As Italians who are living in Kenya we relentlessly hunt for untold stories woven between Africa and Europe. Italians who ended up in Africa during and after colonialism, Africans and Afro-Italians who helped forge Italy, before, during and after World War II — a vast cultural heritage overlooked for various reasons. It's time to rediscover Italian colonial and postcolonial history through fresh eyes. We believe this immersive experience — designed for science museums and educational venues — will unlock new perspectives on both science and international cooperation." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo-L88oT7Y0 This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Rose Bond about 1968 on Sunday, August 31, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for 1968: "1968 is communal VR theatre that explores the transformative power of protest through allusions to 1968 — a year charged with societal, cultural and political unrest. Animated from still photographs of both the iconic and the mundane, the piece investigates international interstices of history, human bonding and power in times of socio-cultural upheaval. Rose Bond's 360° hand-drawn animation interacts with Massimiliano Borghesi's spatialisation of inti figgis-vizueta's original recorded tracks of Seven Sides of Fire to ignite a dynamic, evocative and shared immersive experience. 1968 is a collaboration of international creatives and stands as the first movement of a longer, anticipated work. 1968 is experienced collectively under a geodesic sound dome." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Power of people and culture [11] to change government [10], but also the modes of violence that are used against them [7]. The Transformative Power of Protest Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Emotional Presence: Story, Music - Visual storytelling language of abstract animatsion - Very tightly coupled with the patterns of music2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Spatial Audio via the Dome. There's a lot of void spaces here, and you end up seeing some hand-drawn animations that start to sketch out various scenes of political liberation from the 19683rd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: No words, Poetic Dream Logic to evoke the memories based upon these iconic events from 1968. No explanation or discourse about anything, and so it does require the audience to be somewhat familiar with the specific cultural histories being referenced from both the United States as well as in France. This is shown as a group experience, but you don't see anyone else, and so it also feels like a solo experience that you are parallel playing with others as they watch it4th Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: No narrative agency or any embodied Interactions Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Revolutionary change and upheavel of the socio-political order of the 60s: "investigates international interstices of history, human bonding and power in times of socio-cultural upheaval" - Transformative power of Protest Artist Statement: "'VR, when combined with hand-drawn animation and immersive sound, can articulate complex emotional and lyrical dimensions with rare sensitivity.' Coming from a school of animation that values gesture over spoken word, I regard 3D space as a gift — an expansion from the flatness of film, a place for extended choreography. Sound has long inhabited the space between sense and sensation. This communal VR installation, ensconced in a geodesic dome mounted with fifteen acoustic speakers, seeks a shared experience — one that verges on the haptic, with exquisite spatial precision." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPgr1nul4ro This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Massimiliano Borghesi about 1968 on Thursday, August 28, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. We talked about the spatial audio mix of the orchestral score for 1968. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPgr1nul4ro This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Nicolas Bourniquel about The Sad Story of the Little Mouse Who Wanted to Become Somebody on Tuesday, September 2, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for The Sad Story of the Little Mouse Who Wanted to Become Somebody: "Once upon a time, there was a little mouse who worked relentlessly to achieve a single goal: becoming somebody. Driven solely by her ambition, she slowly grew mean and arrogant, pushing everyone away. One day, she accepted a job offer from the most prolific toymaker in the world: Santa Claus. The little mouse was about to discover that climbing the corporate ladder was not all she had hoped it would be… La triste histoire de la petite souris qui voulait absolument devenir quelqu'un is a biting satire of corporate life in the form of a VR Christmas tale." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: From humble creative workshop [5] at home [4] to express her identity [1] through social media [3], but then becomes completely invisible [12]. Then a transition into the other worldly character of Santa's workshop [9], which becomes a professional workplace that is highly industrialized and automated [10] turning the creative work into a slog of manual tasks devoid of too much creativity or autonomy [6] work that translates into a bit of a situation of slavery [12] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Emotional Presence: Narrative-driven, immersive animation. This very much a character-driven story2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Very detailed world that you enter into. From Paris streets to the speculative workshop of Santa updated with all of the latest gifts of automation3rd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Dialogue amongst the characters - English and no subtitles.. is there any narration?4th Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: No narrative agency or any embodied Interactions Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Radical and Free, Bepoke and Handcrafted Creativity with unbounded creative imagination in tension with Automated Utility & a bit of structured authoritarianism. Certainly a modern day fairy tale that speaks about the dynamics of AI and automation. "The little mouse was about to discover that climbing the corporate ladder was not all she had hoped it would be..." -- "how difficult it is for artists to find their place in a hyper-competitive, automated world. On one side, there's the struggle to exist and be seen when you're as “small” as the little mouse and still need to earn a living. On the other, there's the challenge of preserving craft and creativity in a world where machines increasingly threaten to replace creators altogether." Artist Statement: "With La triste histoire de la petite souris qui voulait absolument devenir quelqu'un, we aim to explore how difficult it is for artists to find their place in a hyper-competitive, automated world. On one side, there's the struggle to exist and be seen when you're as “small” as the little mouse and still need to earn a living. On the other, there's the challenge of preserving craft and creativity in a world where machines increasingly threaten to replace creators altogether." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C83cO-zapE This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Naima Karim & Aleena Hanif about Mirage on Saturday, August 30, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Mirage: "Mirage is an interactive Virtual Reality experience of a young girl who is battling depression and anxiety. Set in a desert landscape, it is a metaphorical and stylised adaptation with visuals created by the artist Naima Karim and her lived experience with her daughter's depression and anxiety. The audience embarks on an immersive journey through the young girl's mind, using hand-tracking interactivity, spatial sound design, original music, and a haptic vest. With hand-tracking interaction, they will be encouraged to support her through her challenges. However, accepting struggles and accepting help from others is not easy for a person suffering from depression and anxiety. Mirage sheds light on the often-misunderstood realities of depression and anxiety, inspiring empathy and understanding." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Mental Health and Depression and anxiety [6], [4] Family, specifically within the context of a parent [4] and their child [5] and her sibling [3], accepting help from others [7] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Emotional Presence: Narrative-driven, immersive animation in VR, but the center of gravity as a cinematic experience2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Spatial Quill Animations, but also quite a lot of Haptic Integrations ( to mimic aspects of chest pain and panic). There are moments where you embody and interact as a parental figure, but also many times you're a ghostly observer3rd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Some light, hand-tracked interactions spread throughout that serve to gate key moments in the story.4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Dialogue amongst the characters, is there narration from one of the character as well? I don't remember Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Depression, Anxiety: "accepting struggles and accepting help from others is not easy for a person suffering from depression and anxiety. Mirage sheds light on the often-misunderstood realities of depression and anxiety, inspiring empathy and understanding." And to "bring awareness to the experiences of someone with depression and anxiety." Artist Statement: "For many children with depression and anxiety, happiness can feel unattainable and just out of reach, like a Mirage. Mirage is based on our personal experience. It was challenging to create because of how vulnerable we had to be to develop an honest experience. We wanted to leave room for audiences to connect in their own way, but still speak to common experiences they might find through our story. The essential purpose of Mirage is for us to share our story and bring awareness to the experiences of someone with depression and anxiety. Through Mirage, we hope to spark conversation and encourage people to empathise and support those with depression and anxiety." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9unNsHKGEc This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Kenji Ishimaru about If You See a Cat on Tuesday, September 2, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for If You See a Cat: "The boy's only friend was a hallucination of his beloved cat. Concerned for his mental health, his mother admitted him to a psychiatric hospital. After three months of medication-based treatment, the hallucinations fade, and he is discharged — but he has lost his emotional anchor and appears even more lifeless than before. Withdrawing into himself, he shuts his mind to the world and isolates in his room. One day, from his window, he sees a girl playing with a stray cat in the parking lot. This quiet moment becomes the catalyst for his recovering." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Mental Health in Japan [6] & within various professional medical contexts with doctors [6]. Overall feelings of exile [12] Main scenes take place at home [4], within the context of a local Japense neighborhoods [3], as well as the hospital [6]. Episode triggered by the death [8] of his cat [6]. You watch the experience through the eyes of these cats [6], often low-level to the ground looking up. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Emotional Presence: Narrative-driven, immersive animation.2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Into these different worlds, and often from the perspective of the cat - to get some distance over the dehumanization depicted by the Japanese medical establishment.. Some spatial metaphors of illusions3rd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Dialogue amongst the characters - English and no subtitles4th Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: No narrative agency or any embodied Interactions Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: The Fragility of Mental Health. The oppression from insitutionalization + transgression of boundaries of Human Rights & violations of dignity. Also withdrawling from society and feelings of exile and grieving death and then starting to see Hallucinations. Empathizing with the types of taboos against mental health within the context of Japan - TITLE: If you see a cat, trying to connect to mundane realities of pets we all have. Universal experiences of the death and loss of pets, but also how mental health issues may also ripple out and impact you or people close to you Artist Statement: "Fortunately, I have never experienced mental illness. In depicting the boy who is at the mercy of his surroundings — including being labelled as mentally ill — I portrayed him as a kind of outsider. But I was always aware that I myself could be in the same position tomorrow." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkUwnPSzxHk This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Joren Vandenbroucke about The Great Escape on Monday, September 1, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for The Great Escape: "In The Great Escape, the viewer arrives as the third of three geranium flowers stuck on the windowsill in the bare living room of Patrick, a lonely 38-year-old man. The geraniums are bored to death and constantly frustrated – with themselves, the windowsill, and Patrick. They long to see the world, but are literally rooted in place. Patrick, meanwhile, walks freely but never leaves the house, trapped in his own lonely routine. Every day starts the same: watering the plants, making coffee, feeding his goldfish, activating his roomba, collecting junk mail, then daydreaming by the window. The monotony gets shaken up when Patrick buys a smartphone to connect with the outside world. The geraniums secretly steal it and post a selfie in a plant swap group, where a woman named Sonja spots it. She convinces Patrick to swap the geraniums for her snake plant. The geraniums are thrilled as they venture outside with Patrick, until a chat with a dying bouquet of roses reveals the outside world isn't so kind to plants. The ensuing existential crisis leads the plants to their near demise and ultimately to a new home with a rather familiar setting." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Home [4], then using communications technologies with a cell phone and social media [3] to connect to someone else in the neighborhood [3]. Then going on a massive adventure. [9] For a human, it's a short-distance travel [3], but for this geranium, it may feel like a completely exotic long-distance journey [9] relative to how often plants move around. "They long to see the world, but are literally rooted in place." Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Emotional Presence: Very FUNNY! Narrative-driven, immersive animation. Surreal comedy genre.2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: You embody a geranium who uses a phone to put themselves on an Online Marketplace and escape into another human owner. From one home to another via public tranportation. The rest of the world is mundane living rooms, a subway trip, and then getting to be outside facing the busy city street3rd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Dialogue. Single-player experience. But you have some virtual co-presence with other geraniums, as you are embodied as a geranium4th Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: I can't recall if there were any explicit interactions other than being embodied as a geranium. If there were, then they just gated the narrative. May have been some phone interactions. Hard to remember Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Tension between Boredom of Reality and the same daily routine and Grand Adventure and Excitement. "The geraniums are bored to death and constantly frustrated." Some pretty brave and courageous acts to go on this adventure. Also fears around potential death associated with this adventure. "The geraniums are thrilled as they venture outside with Patrick, until a chat with a dying bouquet of roses reveals the outside world isn't so kind to plants." After the brush with death, then they enter their new home and a new but similar daily routine begins. "The ensuing existential crisis leads the plants to their near demise and ultimately to a new home with a rather familiar setting." Artist Statement: "At the core The Great Escape is about the boredom that comes with comfort. In this story a pair of houseplants are longing for a “great escape” from their daily dull routine, even though nothing is particularly wrong with this daily flow. On one hand the contradicting wishes and desires of the geraniums might seem amusing, but on the other hand they are relatable as well to people who harbour similar escapist dreams or experience certain inexplicable feelings of ennui. Fleeing a golden cage takes courage and learning to let go sometimes, as Patrick experiences in this story. Even then a safe return is not always guaranteed, like the geraniums find out. Still, there is beauty to be found in the ordinary aspects of life and the flow of daily existence." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH5bGRsqn4k This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Director Minhyuk Che & Producer Sngmoo Lee about 8pm and the Cat on Saturday, August 30, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for 8pm and the Cat: "Cartoonist Haru loses his partner, Mina, in the Itaewon tragedy. Since then, 8 pm — the hour she used to come home — keeps repeating: an ordinary moment in daily life now shadowed by her absence. Within that single hour, different emotional rooms unfold. Images and monologues are generated in real time, shaping singular emotional moments. This generative VR experience invites the audience into Haru's ongoing process of mourning — through the act of constantly drawing and speaking about her." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Death, Loss, Grief [8] of a primary partner [7], the Pain and Suffering [12], as well as the home and artifacts that carry the memories of a relationship [4] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Emotional Presence: Story of loss and grief - The connection between Space and Emotion2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Tell the story off loss by montage sequences of objects, spaces, and the liminal afterlife3rd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Generative AI prompt -- But also certain aspects of the story is also being dynamically generated and changes each time, although this is harder to discern what was authored and what was generative4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Monologues / subtitles Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Incredible loss and grief, and the malaise of that, allusions to the afterlife as it explores the theme of "loving someone for a long time, beyond absence" - Cyclical nature of time of the Chronos Time and Kairos Time, with 8p becoming a daily reminder of the loss. "October 29, 2022: 159 people did not return home from Itaewon. The hour stayed still." Artist Statement: "When a friend told me they didn't know how to live after losing the person they loved most, I didn't know what to say. How could I possibly grasp the depth of that grief? We don't even know what it truly means to overcome such sorrow. Maybe it means to keep longing for the one who's gone, to keep speaking to them, to let them stay alive inside us. This work was an attempt to hold onto that feeling — of loving someone for a long time, beyond absence." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ3HCloXspk This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Maya Shekel about Eddie and I on Monday, September 1, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Eddie and I: "How do you overcome the fear of the unknown? Eight-year-old deaf Ron is afraid of his first camping trip. To calm him, his mother tells the story of Eddie the Camper, a friendly monster who grew up in the forest and is the perfect companion for a nature adventure. Despite her efforts, Ron, struggles to believe the story, and his fear persists. That night, Ron falls into a deep sleep and awakens in a surreal forest where he meets the player, embodied as Eddie the Camper. Together, they embark on an adventure full of challenges. But there's one barrier standing in the way: Ron can't hear, and the player doesn't know sign language. Across this interactive VR experience, the player and Ron will need to work together to complete tasks like building a campfire, skipping stones in the river, stargazing, and even confronting a menacing carnivorous flower. Along the way, the player'll navigate the forest, learn simple sign language keywords, and build trust. Will the player and Ron bridge the gap, overcome communication barriers, and succeed in the adventure?" Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Communication [3] in the context of feeling a bit exiled from the cutulre via the experience of deafness [12], but you cultivate empathy and connection [7] as you travel to a camping adventure [9] and be a friend to the main character [11]. You also embody a monster [12], but it is treated functionally as an invisble [12] friend [11]. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Emotional Presence: Scenes at home, and then off to a camping adventure with a 3-4 different distinct scenes. It's very story-driven, but the emodied interactions are also a main focal point2nd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: sign language actions very much inform the arc of the narrative, and emphasize the desire to connecct and empathize with the deaf protagonist3rd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: The embodied interactions of doing the sign language with hand tracking, You are embodied as a main character within this story -- in fact the monster of Eddie4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: There is a bit of educational quality to it such that the end result does seem to be to teach various different sign language signs. But this is also very much not an educational application. It has teaching moments contained within the context of the story. So it is very-much still story-driven, but can still have a pedagocial edge to it, which can be in tension with the inherent narrative tensions of the story. More Air / Thinking than Water / Emotion overall in the piece for me Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Communication through embodied actions. Empathy Artist Statement: "How can we communicate when we don't share a common language? Whether it's French, Arabic, or sign language, how can we bridge the gap between the unfamiliar and ourselves? This question goes beyond sign language, touching on the deeper challenge of connecting across cultures, communities, and different lived realities. Eddie and I transforms barriers into opportunities for connection. Users play Eddie, a friendly monster helping Ron, a deaf boy, overcome his fear of camping, using storytelling and hand-tracking to learn simple sign language and build trust. In an increasingly polarised world, Eddie and I seeks to reduce alienation, stigma, and intolerance, offering a safe, playful, empathetic encounter with “the other”. This embodied, memorable experience shows how technology can serve as a powerful tool to foster deeper understanding and empathy across all walks of life." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cmrp3POKKo This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Navid Khonsari & Vassiliki Khonsari about LILI on Sunday, August 31, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for LILI: "In an Iranian city, Lili, the lonely wife of a militia commander, plots a murder to secure her husband's rise within a corrupt regime. But when the killing unhinges the order of things, she is drawn into a network of deep web hackers — modern-day witches — who weaponise hidden truth. This stylised neo-noir game adaptation of Macbeth unfolds through smartphones, computer screens, and deep-state surveillance, immersing players as hackers in the oppressive surveillance state." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Embody Hacker within the Surveillance State [12] context of an athoritarian government [10] as you watch someone in their home [4], and you're doing this through a computer and communications technology device [3]. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: A screen life thriller with computer screen-based Interactions, operate computer2nd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Cut scenes of the Lady MacBeth character unfold, which are gated by you solving little interactive puzzles3rd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Site-specific installation, and lots of theatrical staging. It's not VR, and so you are primarly interfacing with a computer screen within the context of a hacker-like space. You're watching various action unfold over surveillance footage, but you also are primarily interfacing with a computer screen.4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Possibility spaces of choices to make. There are some different endings, or at least a follow-up QR code to learn more about the identity of either being a rebel or enforcing the authoritarian rule. The primary mode of instruction comes via a chat window as you get clues for various puzzles that you have to solve. You face some mental friction with each puzzle, but then are rewarded with the progression of the story. There's also the symbolic connections and parallels to Shakespeare's MacBeth to add additional contextualization for how this story might adapt to the context of the authoritarian regime within Iran Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Authoritarian tendancies as well as control "challenges them to question power, control, and complicity." Power, but bringing up questions of Justice. Artist Statement: "A bold reimagining of Macbeth set in present-day Iran, Lili centers on Lady Macbeth in a screen life thriller that embodies the kind of boundary-pushing work we champion at iNK Stories. Fusing film, theatre, and game design, it confronts rising surveillance and authoritarianism. Blending classic storytelling with AI and interactivity, Lili breaks cinematic convention — inviting audiences to step inside the narrative, make choices, and face consequences in a layered experience that challenges them to question power, control, and complicity." This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Ives Agemans about Wall Town Wonders on Tuesday, September 2, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Wall Town Wonders: "Wall Town Wonders is a magical mixed reality experience where players discover a miniature town growing inside their living room walls. Through Meta's latest mixed reality headset, the game blends real and virtual worlds using advanced room scanning and spatial awareness. Players interact with hand-tracked characters, construct buildings, and manage resources, all while discovering secrets hidden behind their walls. The story-driven gameplay unfolds in real-time, reacting to the layout of the player's home. Detailed animations, expressive motion capture, and immersive sound design make the town feel alive. As players progress, they unlock new zones, residents, and stories, including quests from heroic mice, eccentric inventors, and mischievous goblins. Wall Town Wonders brings childhood imagination into reality, transforming ordinary spaces into enchanted environments filled with wonder, strategy, and storytelling. It redefines home-based gaming, inviting players to play, care, and connect with their tiny walldwelling neighbours." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Building virutal homes [4] and neighborhoods [3] and analyzing the resulting community & culture [11] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Casual Town Building Game with lots of minigames2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Mixed Reality, but also grinding activities to gather resources to build3rd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Dialogue amongst the characters - Sims-like relational dynamics4th Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Not really story-driven as the story is not what sticks with me. But there's a bit of timing and spacing that happens to force you to explore other aspects rather than endlessly spanning the mini-games Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Building virtual infrastructure and a town, but also dealing with natural resources and constraints Artist Statement: "I've always been fascinated by the idea of small people secretly living in our walls — a world just out of sight but full of life. With Meta's mixed reality headset and precise room scanning, I finally had the tools to make that fantasy real. We focused on incredible detail in animation, handtracked interactions, and characters that feel alive in your space. This project is a dream come true — turning your room into a living, evolving miniature world where every corner hides a story. It's about wonder, connection, and rediscovering your space with new eyes." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk-ebdJmK0I This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Richard Turco about One True Path, Part 1 on Tuesday, September 2, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for One True Path, Part 1: "The viewer can travel through three fantastical worlds from author Jack Stevenson's oldschool Fiendish Fates gamebook series, each featuring different themes and gameplay. With a magical sword in hand, the viewer can make their way through the necromantic Army of Evil, led by the demonic Grey Knight. In Butchers of Orion, they can use mind-powers and body-hopping abilities to escape the slaughterhouse spaceship of the lifesucking Lady Oriana. Moreover, it is possible to blast the corrupt guards of Sheriff Cassidy's wasteland penitentiary with shock-hand and trusty cyber-shooter in Prisoner of the Cyberhounds. Exploiting interdimensional portals to cross between place, time, and gameplay styles, the viewer discovers clues, secrets, and personal notes to decipher the story behind the books and the true meaning of their journey through Jack's fictional worlds." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Adventure into speculative literary worlds [9] of a variety of different genres in order to investigate and solve [9] a mystery [12] of why the author was killed [8] as he created these worlds Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Gameplay Modalities in Different Genres - Mashing those up, uses the waypoint locomotion as a constraint. The most game-like exploration of different actions that are also mirroed in the worldbuilding and story that's being told2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Embodied Actions that change depending upon the genre of game/literature being explored. These genres are blended in the culmination. There's also the spatial context of the builetin board that helps spatially track where you are in the story.3rd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Context of a Mystery. But there's a murder that's happened within the base reality of this world, but then you go off onto these various speculative worlds based upon these different genres of interactive books. This overall experience is just the pilot, and so we don't get to see the full arc of the story. So it's sort of like watching the first episode of a longer series, which leaves it in a bit of a cliffhanger type of situation in terms of fully solving the murder mystery.4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Very specific inspiration from literature, so it's an adaptation of sorts. There's cut scene contextualization at the beginning and end of each core gameplay loop cycle where you get a bit more dialogue. But it's mostly a sort of puzzle like game, and so with the constrained locomotion, it puts more of an emphasis on strategy of teleportation movement rather than the brue force nature of FPS shooters. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Exploration, Adventure, Gameplay, Solve mystery Artist Statement: "It's a difficult moment for narrative driven VR games and the game industry in general. Despite this, we wanted to push the boundaries of storytelling and develop an ambitious universe, at a time where we don't see lots of innovation in the VR market, especially on the narrative side. We've been developing this first part of the game for several months, with most of the final features included, and decided to release it on early access. Our character Jack has more cards in his sleeve and there will be many more secrets (and even worlds!) to discover. We consider it as a “pilot”, a first part to what will hopefully — with players' help — become the complete narrative experience we've imagined." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2U8p6mEwmI This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Tom Seed about Ghost Town on Friday, August 29, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Ghost Town: "Life has been going well for Edith. The paranormal detective agency she runs with her flatmate has never been busier, she's almost up-to-date with her rent and the ghosts in her bathroom mirror have been less demanding than usual. Edith's world is turned upside down when her brother goes missing and a mysterious new lead promises to reveal clues of his whereabouts. Edith's journey begins with a visit to a remote Scottish island in the hope a gifted clairvoyant can provide some much-needed answers." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Adventure [9] into the blurring of supernatural & mundane spaces to find a lost sibling [3]. Helping liminal ghosts [12] transition into the afterlife [9]. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity: Fire Element / Active Presence: Adventure Game where you solve puzzles and liberate supernatural entities into the afterlife. A pretty set gameplay loop2nd Center of Gravity: Earth Element / Environmental Presence: Exquisite environmental design & Worldbuilding of 1980s United Kingdom.3rd Center of Gravity: Emotional Presence: Overarching Narrative with motion captured characters. Spooky supernatural scenes, but also driven by curiosity and exploration.4th Center of Gravity: Mental Presence: A variety of spatial puzzles. Cut scenes with dialogue. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Adventure, Solving Puzzles Artist Statement: "Development on Ghost Town — a single-player puzzle adventure VR game — began four years ago and expands upon Fireproof's experience creating the game series The Room. The scope of Ghost Town is a significant step up for Fireproof Games in every way. Building on the immersive puzzles and atmospheric set pieces of The Room, Fireproof have crafted the puzzle gameplay they are known for into a variety of expansive environments full of detailed worldbuilding with a strong narrative focus. And, a first for Fireproof, there is a variety of fully motion captured characters who breathe life into the script and add a greater sense of depth to the narrative experience." This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

This post officially kicks off my Venice Immersive 2025 coverage, see links to all 38 episodes and 30+ hours of interviews down below. We're starting off with the interview that I did with Doug Liman (co-founder of 30 Ninjas), Julina Tatlock (co-founder of 30 Ninjas), & Jed Weintrob (co-founder of 30 Ninjas), & Max Spear (Product Lead of Android XR at Google) about Asteroid on Saturday, August 30, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Asteroid: "Asteroid is an immersive film and interactive story extension made for the launch of Google's new Android XR platform. The 180° immersive short film is a high-stakes action thriller about a group of strangers who take an old Russian Soyuz rocket to mine a near-earth, treasure laden asteroid for a chance at unimaginable wealth. After the film, the experience continues and the audience enters the world of Asteroid when they receive an SOS from one of the characters, DK Metcalf, who was left for dead. The viewer becomes a player when they are invited to aid in DK's rescue. Through speaking with an AI-generated version of DK — played by the NFL player as himself — the user determines the truth about what happened on the asteroid and sends his exact location to NASA for rescue." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Long distance travel [9] where someone is left behind (de facto exile) [12], and there is a rescue mission where you as a character [1] help out the protagonist [7] in the second half, but also a lot of mystery [12] to figure out and investigate [9] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Emotional Presence: cinematic Virtual Reality thriller that begins as a film and continues as an immersive story game. Combination of live-action 180-video along with CGI-driven animations also in 180-video2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Worldbuilding of sci-fi extraction of asteroid, you embody a character in story in the last part, and you break the fourth wall in the onboarding talking to the actor who plays a character via AI3rd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Conversational-driven AI Story Extension - You talk to the actor DK Metcalf at the beginning and with the character at the end. A bit of puzzling together of the myserious aspects of the story4th Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: continues as an immersive story game - Improv convo + slightly nudged and directed exploration Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Everyone are anti-heroes archetypes - Power and Greed vs Limitations, constraints, boundaries, death. Doug Liman says there aren't many anti-heroes in space movies, Han Solo is an exception. What if all of the characters were Han Solos? What drama would ensue? Artist Statement: "I've always thought of myself as an immersive filmmaker. The goal was to put the audience in the action, not to be sort of passively watching it. Now that the technology has caught up with us, I really can put the audience in the rocket. Asteroid is the story of a ragtag group of astronauts who booked a ride on a used Soyuz spacecraft. An asteroid passes near Earth. It's laden with precious metals and gems. If you can get there, you can become insanely wealthy. It's a modern gold rush." Trailer: https://vimeo.com/1163762576/d0d75004c2?fl=pl&fe=vl You can find links to my 30+ hours of my coverage from Venice Immersive 2025 across 39 episodes. I've categorized the experiences according to these "elemental genres," which is looking at the top two elemental centers of gravity. You can watch this talk on "Blending the Elements on Experiential Design" for more details. #1650: Sneak Peak of Venice Immersive 2025 Selection with Curators Liz Rosenthal and Michel Reilhac #1750: Doug Liman's "Asteroid" Short Immersive Film with Google Gemini Story Extension + Kickoff of Venice Immersive 2025 Coverage #1751: "Ghost Town" Narrative Integration in Puzzle Adventure with Exquisite Worldbuilding #1752: Blending Embodied Game & Narrative Genres with "One True Path, Part 1" #1753: Mixed Reality Town-Building and Sim Game "Wall Town Wonders" #1754: Screen Life Thriller "LILI" about Surveillance Fuses Game Design, Film, and MacBeth Adaptation #1755: Hand-Tracked Sign Language as Story Beat Triggers in "Eddie and I" #1756: Exploring Narrative Potential of Generative AI in "8pm and the Cat" #1757: Embody a Geranium in Immersive Comedy about Boredom in "The Great Escape" #1758: Reckoning with Mental Health Taboos in Japan with "If You See a Cat" Immersive Animation #1759: Mother-Daughter Team Explore Personal Challenges with Depression and Anxiety in "Mirage" Immersive Animation #1760: Immersive Fairy Tale about Automation with "The Sad Story of the Little Mouse Who Wanted to Become Somebody" #1761: Unpacking the Immersive Orchestral Mix of "1968" with Massimiliano Borghesi #1762: Fusing Experimental Immersive Animation with Cutting-Edge Orchestral Spatial Audio Mix in "1968" #1763: Blending Theater and 360 Video in "Re-Launching-Luigi-Broglio" #1764: Mixing Hand-Drawn Animation with 360 Video in "The Time Before" #1765: Immersive Action Thriller "Mulan 2125" Pushes the Edge of Graphical Fidelity #1766: Formula 1 LBE Experience "Black Cats & Chequered Flags" is an Immersive Biopic of Alberto Anscari #1767: Immersive Journey through Special Effects Pioneer Carlo Rambaldi's Paintings in "Alien Perspective" #1768: Symbolic Journey through Lithuania's Artist Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis' Paintings in "Creation of the World" #1769: Mixed Reality Musical on Avatars and Identity in "First Virtual Suit" #1770: Eastern Philosophy-Inspired Fusion of Theater and XR with "Mnemosyne" #1771: Environmental Storytelling in "The Great Orator" VR Diorama with Generative AI Experiments #1772: Climate Change Spatial Montage "Out of Nowhere" Aspires to Move Towards Rewilding Prevention #1773: "Collective Body" Assigns Elemental Avatars Based Upon Archetypal Dance Movements #1774: Combining Live Dance and Music in Immersive LBE Performance "L'ombre (The Shadow)" #1775: The Continuous Spatial One-Shot of Backlight's "La Magie Opera" LBE #1776: The Spatial Grammar Innovations of Dialectical Contrasts and Abstraction within "The Big Cube" #1777: Active Imagination, Associative Dream Logic, & Embodied Interactions in "Sense of Nowhere" #1778: Collaborative Social Game and Story of "Happy Shadow" #1779: "Heartbeat" Immersive, 1-on-1 Biometric Synchronization and Involuntary Collective Agency #1780: Recap of VRChat Worlds Gallery at Venice Immersive 2025 with Mike Salmon #1781: Winner of Venice Immersive 2025 "The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up" Innovates on Gaussian Splats & Spatial Storytelling #1782: "A Long Goodbye" Wins 3rd Place Prize at Venice Immersive with Emotionally-Moving Story on Dementia and Spatial Grammar Innovations #1783: "Less Than 5gr of Saffron" Wins 2nd Place Prize at Venice Immersive with Spatial Poem Quill Animation #1784: The Incredible Spatial Transitions of "Dark Rooms" with Radical Consent Innovations #1785: The Landmark Achievements of "Blur" in Fusing Theater, Montage, Mixed Reality, and LBE VR #1786: Collective Reading Experience of "Constantinopoliad" Provokes Discussion on Defining "Immersive" #1787: Blending the Elements of Experiential Design & Process-Relational Foundations of the Elements This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I participated in another Socratic Debate about the Future of "AI" and XR at Augmented World Expo 2026 with Leslie Shannon, Alvin Graylin, and Louis Rosenberg (you can listen to last year's debate in episode #1611). Shannon and Graylin argued for "AI," whilst Rosenberg and I argued against "AI." In my write-up, I wanted to leave some breadcrumbs to more in-depth, skeptical arguments against "AI" that we didn't have space or time to dig into during the debate, but "some breadcrumbs" ended up being over 30k words, and more like an outline for an entire book. Writing a book isn't on my to-do list at the moment, but disseminating the work researchers, journalists, linguists, and critics of "AI" have done is urgent and necessary, so I'm sharing the results of this deep dive here, in bullet list format. My fellow panelists, Alvin Graylin and Louis Rosenberg, indulged me in extending our debate offline after AWE, pushing me to test my ideas further and demonstrating how and why this is an extremely active field of study with polarizing points of view that often come down to philosophical differences. Clearly, it's just getting started. My objections to "AI" is loosely organized by various themes, but some framing may be helpful in approaching it. My objections to "AI" center around the limitations of LLMs, the consolidation of wealth and power from Hyperscaler companies, and threats from automated decision making systems and surveillance capitalism melded with democratically-backsliding authoritarian governments. I'm including a broad range of critiques spanning the domains of philosophy, technology, sociology, politics, economics, culture, and ethics. I'm coming from the orientation of Process Philosophy & Peircean Semiotics that emphasizes the relational and contextual dimensions that the "AI" field tends to de-emphasize or completely collapse. I see process-relational philosophy as a necessary paradigm shift away from the underpinning philosophies of the "AI" community, which tend to be Functionalism, Naturalism, Computational Theory of Mind, Physicalism, & the TESCREAL bundle. Below you'll find my own process philosophical emergency response to "AI embedded within my curation of excerpts and commentary of primary sources that I'm leaning upon. The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want (2025) by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna (also see episode #1563). Bender & Hanna say, "To put it bluntly, 'AI' is a marketing term. It doesn't refer to a coherent set of technologies. Instead, the phrase "artificial intelligence" is deployed when the people building or selling a particular set of technologies will profit from getting others to believe that their technology is similar to humans, able to do things that, in fact, intrinsically require human judgment, perception, or creativity." Emily M. Bender wrote the "Artificial Intelligence" [preprint] (2026, June 25) entry for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Society. Bender's concluding paragraph gives a great overview of the seven different ways that the idea of "artificial intelligence" operates in the world. She says, "The notion of artificial intelligence is frequently sold as present or near-future and inevitable technology. In fact there is no coherent set of technologies that can serve as the denotation of the phrase, nor do any of the technologies so marketed rise to the fantastical but ill-defined claims of 'AI' is or soon will be. Nonetheless, the idea of artificial intelligence has been extremely impactful in the world. In order to better understand and deal with those impacts, it is helpful to look at artificial intelligence through the varied lenses of how the idea operates in the world: as the name of a research field, as one approach to cognitive science, as a parlor trick, as a an ideology, as a way to hide and devalue human labor, as a way to shift and/or obfuscate accountability, and as a means to centralize power." Inventing Intelligence: On the History of Complex Information Processing and Artificial Intelligence in the United States in the Mid-Twentieth Century [dissertation] (2020, December 14) by Jonnie Penn. Penn says, "The phrase ‘artificial intelligence' was coined by John McCarthy, an American mathematician, in 1955. It has travelled with a noticeably amorphous definition since." "AI" has always had a spotty history of technologists using a "brain is a computer" metaphor while also using "poor citation practices." From page 14, Penn says, "The vocabulary Simon, Rosenblatt, McCarthy and Minsky chose to describe new techniques in major newspapers and scholarly journals informed Americans' still plastic understandings of what was possible, and indeed desirable, in the emerging information age… During the mid to late 1950s, these men turned to clannishness, self-aggrandizement, speculative rhetoric, fluid definitions of key terms and poor citation practices to shore up legitimacy for their controversial new techniques — actions that drew attention toward questions of how to accomplish such aims and away from whether they were well founded." Part II: Remembering the Human Microcosm in the Age of Mechanized Intelligence: Philosophy as Emergency Response (2026, June 9) by Matt Segall. In a multi-part Substack series, process philosopher Matt Segall calls for a philosophical emergency response to "AI." He says, "In each case a new media technology intended to expand the power of thought ended up transforming the very nature of the thinker who invented it. Each new medium furnishes the very terms in which we come to understand ourselves. This is why the philosophical response is always an emergency response: by the time anyone has noticed what is happening, what may be lost and what gained, the mutation has already done half of its work." Segall warns about the computational metaphor of the mind by saying, "The large language model now tempts us to adopt an even stranger self-image: that human minds are no different than machines, our thoughts just the statistical echoes of our training data. The creators of this latest technological upgrade are encouraging us to downgrade our estimate of human consciousness, thus narrowing the distance between ourselves and the machines built to imitate us." "Resisting Dehumanization in the Age of 'AI': The View from the Humanities" [lecture] (2026, February 10) by Emily M. Bender. Here are the lecture slides with a bibliography at the end. Bender does an amazing overview of how the marketing of "AI" uses pernicious dehumanization tactics built on an underlying "brain is a computer metaphor." From page 15 of her talk: "Scientific metaphor used and debated in neuroscience: "THE BRAIN IS A COMPUTER. "PR metaphor used by technologists: "THE COMPUTER IS A BRAIN" Bender cites Baria & Cross' paper titled "The brain is a computer is a brain: neuroscience's internal debate and the social significance of the Computational Metaphor (2021), which says “the Computational Metaphor rests on other well-ingrained ideologies in which a hierarchy of human value is tied to a particular notion of intelligence such that the quality of being emotional is considered inferior to being rational." Bender also cites Dijkstra's 1985 lecture "On anthropomorphism in science": "A more serious byproduct of the tendency to talk about machines in anthropomorphic terms is the companion phenomenon of talking about people in mechanistic terminology." Here are a couple of examples of how "AI" Hyperscaler companies like OpenAI use dehumanizing tactics to sell us on "AI" Hype. Sam Altman will say things like, "A kid born today will never be smarter than AI. Ever." Or another example is when Altman says, "For me, AGI is basically the equivalent of a median human that you could hire as a co-worker... And then Superintelligence is when it's smarter than all of humanity put together." These statements collapse the human experience into one dimension of "intelligence," which amplifies the dual harm of treating machines more like humans and treating humans more like machines. It is also questionable the degree to which this statement is even true given the potential non-computational aspects of "relevance realization." More on this down below. Part IV: Remembering the Human Microcosm in the Age of Mechanized Intelligence: Hegel's Loom and the Difference Reason Makes (2026, June 10) by Matt Segall. Segall brilliantly breaks down the "Brain is a Computer Metaphor" by saying, "Metaphor is not just a shiny paint job on the vehicle of cognition. It is the engine of thought. Its coupling of concepts drives the limits of conceivability, shaping what is thought together and what is not thought at all. The metaphorical imagination is our main means of tuning in to the otherwise invisible effects of new media technologies. Part of the discipline philosophy brings is allowing us to notice an analogy as an analogy before advertising crystalizes it into the unnoticed transparency of common sense. A fact is a fact, but it might also be a fossilized metaphor. The governing analogy of our age is that cognition is computation: the brain an information-processing device, perception its input and behavior its output, memory a form of physical storage, learning the adjustment of weights, and intelligence an algorithm for minimizing error or surprisal. On this view, given enough training data and computational power, consciousness itself will eventually be engineered… The metaphor “the mind is a computer,” for example, tacitly proposes that mind is to brain as software is to hardware… Reiterated in textbooks and earnings calls, in grant applications and policy briefs, the partial comparison congeals into an ontology, until we find ourselves insisting not that the mind is like a computer in some respects but that it simply is one — and,...

I interviewed Caitlin Krause about the experience of XR, Process Philosophy musings, & the ethics of AI on Wednesday, June 17, 2026 at Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, California. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Trond Nilsen about reluctantly using AI Hyperscalers & the aspiration for open source alternatives on Thursday, June 18, 2026 at Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, California. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed XR Pioneer Tom Furness about Luminara, Institute Institute of Light that he announced at on June 17th, 2026 during his 1:35p session at Augmented World Expo. He describes the vision on their website as "Luminara is a non-profit research, learning, and humanitarian initiative exploring how emerging technologies, human consciousness, creativity, compassion, and service can work together to uplift humanity." They'll be investigating how to cultivate human flourishing through various research and collaborations to explore human potential through the lens of immersive technologies. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Metaverse Standards Forum President Neil Trevett about key open Standards enabling the Open Metaverse Browser Initiative with RP1 on Tuesday, June 16, 2026 at Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, California. You can see their AWE talk here, and check out the Open Metaverse Browser wiki for more information. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Sean Mann about RP1's Open Metaverse Browser Initiative announcement with the Metaverse Standards Forum on Tuesday, June 16, 2026 at Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, California. You can see their AWE talk here, and check out the Open Metaverse Browser wiki for more information. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Ben Erwin about Immersive Public Media, Open Standards & The Metaverse Standards Forum, & The Academy of Immersive Arts and Sciences on Thursday, June 18, 2026 at Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, California. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Amanda Watson about GPL Compatibility in VR with CitraVR, Oculus Link & Air Link, & VR as the Perfect 3DUI for Robotic Teleoperation on Thursday, June 18, 2026 at Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, California. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed founders of Stay Warm Studio Carol Silvermann and Dario Laverde about an interoperable OpenXR experience titled fun4player that was deployed from a single APK to 3 different VR HMDs (Samsung Galaxy XR, Oculus Quest 3, and Pico 4). We chatted on Wednesday, June 17, 2026 at Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, California. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Victor Agulhon about the growing interest in immersive storytelling through his Targo Stories on Thursday, June 18, 2026 at Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, California. Targo won an Auggie this year as well as an Apple Design Award both for D-Day: The Camera Soldier (see episode #1565 for more). This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Nathan Fairchild about Ganek Immersive Studio at USC's School of Cinematic Arts on Thursday, June 18, 2026 at Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, California. Fairchild was at AWE showing off some student projects of Immersive Video, and I really quite enjoyed the hyperstylized, fever dream of Elevator by LILLETH who is coming from an immersive theatre background. Ori Inbar had mentioned how immersive video was one of the sectors that was growing within his opening keynote. The Apple Vision Pro has helped to revitalize interest in the more cinematic 180-degree forms, but also for XR as a screen replacement and more immersive way to experience cinematic content. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Zeynep Abes about USC's Immersive Archive Initiative on Thursday, June 18, 2026 at Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, California. Also be sure to check out my interview with Avinash Changa on the The Institute of Immersive Preservation, which is addressing other aspects of the required operating system infrastructure to emulate drivers over the past decade of immersive works. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Christopher Stapleton about Augmented Imagination Framework for Conversational Embodied Stories on Tuesday, June 16, 2026 at Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, California. Here's the recording of Stapleton's AWE talk on the Augmented Imagination, which provides a lot more visuals for many of the same topics that we cover in this conversation. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality