XR Experience Program in the Congressional Ballroom at Fairmont
aespa is having their first concert at “KWANGYA”, an unruled and infinite place. Users are invited to “KWANGYA” by being virtually flown into the “FLAT” where "aespa" and "ae" can “SYNK” ("ae" is one’s alter ego in the virtual world with a free will of its own; “SYNK” is a state of connection between human in the real world and their counterpart avatar). Fans will experience aespa and their stories up close and personally like never before in this VR Concert experience.
Immerse yourself in today’s most sensational gastronomy creations from a new perspective. Discover the stories of three fearless female chefs revolutionizing the food industry. From picturesque farms to prestigious kitchens, embark on an international journey behind the scenes of the culinary world. Thanks to a revolutionary 3D filming technique, dive into the plates and watch super-sized dishes come to life in front of your eyes.
"Body of Mine VR" places you into the body of another gender for an exploration of gender dysphoria and trans identity. The experience combines body, face, and eye tracking that allows you to interact with your body with dozens of real audio interviews with transgender interviews, to let you hear, discover, and experience firsthand stories of the trans experience.
"Consensus Gentium" is a powerful exploration into the implications of today's AI technology. It is an interactive film that integrates cutting-edge facial detection and AI, which transports audiences on a unique quest to discover what could come about if we succumb to unchecked surveillance. Using various tests, their dissidence or compliance is calculated, by monitoring data by the devices’ front-facing camera. "Consensus Gentium" is made with the support of the BFI’s Film Development Fund, National Lottery, is part of the Future Art and Culture programme at SXSW produced by British Underground and funded by Arts Council England with additional support in 2023 from the British Council.
An MR experience about terrified little eggs struggling to stay alive in a world full of enemies. Users engage in the irreverent universe of Eggscape by controlling their egg through different scenarios, such as a city alley and a Vegas-like world of excess. Via the VR headset, you can see into the real world and interact with your surroundings and other players unprecedentedly. Step into the revolutionary world of "Eggscape" and strategize how to avoid the dangers presented to our anxious eggs. Build upon the game's structures by interacting with your surroundings. Creating levels and unique adventures that can be played alone or shared with your friends.
"El Beat" VR is a journey from the coast of Senegal to the territory of Palenque, following the route of enslaved African men during the colony. Through sound, music and palenquero language, we build a symbolic and dreamlike universe that explores the beginning of the African diaspora in Latin America. It is an immersive experience of 6DoF, integrating volumetric capture, 3D modeling, tilt brush, photogrammetry and binaural sound. The interactive film is a hybrid of documentary and fiction, intertwining the history of Biohó with the reality of maestro Rafael Cassiani, who has preserved the musical tradition of Palenque until today.
Check out the Conference Session with the team behind the XR Experience project Figural Bodies: https://schedule.sxsw.com/2023/events/PP127701 "Figural Bodies," created with Candoco Dance, is active research towards deconstructing mocap data from its enforced normative algorithms, celebrating subversion and difference in the immersive representation of bodies. Disabled dancers in Austin and London, connected by Goldsmiths Mocap Streamer, seek to share embodied communication through virtual interaction. The dancers communicate through a co-created movement vocabulary, using motion data and machine learning to push the boundaries of how bodies can be represented in the Metaverse. Future Art and Culture is produced by British Underground at SxSW funded by Arts Council England with additional support in 2023 from the British Council.
There is a world where a teleportation device has changed the future and lives of humanity with its first appearance, it has been commercialized. However, this device has a flaw: the traveler's memory is lost with a 5% chance. These lost memories are called "WiiLii," which cause the machine to malfunction, so the service developer IIOIIG secretly operates a team "Find WiiLii" to eliminate WiiLii. In the Find WiiLii experience, you discover hidden facts while working as a newcomer to this secretive 'Find WiiLii' team.
Check out the Conference Session with the team behind Forager: Immersive Multi-sensory Experience: https://schedule.sxsw.com/2023/events/PP125896 A mushroom is a door in the floor. Open it and discover nature’s greatest revelation: an endless underground network secretly feeding life to the world above. And yet, we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about mushrooms. What if we knew more? Using sight, sound, touch and scent, you will experience the complete life-cycle of mushrooms: spores, mycelium, fruiting body, and the inevitable decay. Working closely with the Smallhold Mushroom Farm, we have spent the last 2 years developing a unique volumetric time-lapse technology that brings the mushroom kingdom to life in a new way, never before experienced.
Bombed houses, schools, hospitals, streets and many others. War in Ukraine from its beginning has taken away thousands of households and lifes as well. Kharkiv was one of the towns which was hit in a massive way. In this immersive experience in virtual reality you look into the eyes of those who lost their homes or places closely connected with them. What can this simple look awake in us? Will it bring despair, grief or hope?
Encircling a central square, a new town emerges in all its diversity. A crossroad of stories, buildings, hopes, and conflicts. Social ties and cultures take root. People nurture sympathy and care for their equals, but also animosity towards those who are different. It doesn't take long for an "us versus them" atmosphere to take over. "From The Main Square" is an interactive VR experience that invites the viewer to witness the rise and fall of a divided society. A civilization blossoms, with all its contradictions, only to become a danger to itself.
The full trilogy of JAILBIRDS, the 6dof interactive story, is finally being released. After the success of the first chapter JAILBIRDS Bwa Kayiman in 2021(best screenplay, audience award…), two more chapters conclude the story of Felix, the peaceful giant. In The vulture’s claws, the vicious Chief-Warden of the prison discovers the secret of his magical serenity and use it against him, pushing his non-violent beliefs to the limits. The eye of the artist brings the story to its bitter conclusion, where two concepts of justice come to clash against each other. Both new chapters shows the same visual and directing style that made the success of the first one.
One of the top-selling Latin performers in the world, Balvin will also look to the future with an over-the-top visual spectacle. Kicking off the show strapped into a 15-foot robotic arm that moves to the beat of the music, Balvin also performs on a custom-built stage that revolves in conjunction with a fully moving light grid. Add to that choreography from seven back up dancers that was crafted specifically to be shot in VR and you have a recipe for an out-of-this-world event. The special features 17 of Balvin’s hit songs, each performed with a unique staging, including “La Canción,” “I Like It,” “No Me Conoce,” “Mi Gente,” and more.
60 years after President Kennedy's assassination, "JFK Memento" chronicles the events of November 22, 1963 and the investigation that followed. Across six chapters narrated by the last living witnesses, journalists and investigators who lived through the events, this documentary is a historically accurate record of these 48 hours that changed the world. Dive into the defining moments of the investigation as archive photos and films come to life, re-mastered in 3D and re-projected onto the historic sites as they were back in 1963. Produced in collaboration with the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas and with the support of Meta Immersive Learning, "JFK Memento" is a narrative learning experience.
Autism is at once fascinating, challenging, and inspiring. Although this distinct neurological condition includes a set of common characteristics, there are as many different ways to be autistic as there are autistic people – hence the spectrum. Our main character, "Lou," is based on stories and experiences shared by autistic people and inspired by the children of both directors. You will witness firsthand a few days in the life of this charming and vulnerable individual, from a children's birthday party to his first day of high school. For a moment, experience the world with his sensitivity.
It’s been sixty years since Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech, but the messages from that speech still resonate today. Through first-person stories and interactions, “MLK: Now Is The Time” drops you into a thoroughly modern interpretation of a contemporary March on Washington that will inform and inspire a new generation of activists. The experience examines three topics addressed in Dr. King’s speech: housing, policing, and voting. Audio from the “I Have A Dream” speech is layered throughout, culminating in a scene that depicts the continued legacy of Dr. King's words through modern-day protests.
Step into the shoes of Bertha Benz, the wife of Karl Benz and inventor of the first automobile. Set in 1886 Germany, explore the workshop and discover Bertha's backstory, search for the blueprints to the world's first car, assemble the engine for her husband's invention, and embark on a road trip that will change the course of history. Mrs Benz is part of the Future Art and Culture programme at SXSW produced by British Underground and funded by Arts Council England with additional support in 2023 from the British Council.
In Inupiaq tradition, glaciers carry memories from the past and communicate them in song. The climate crisis has become a terrifying reality that includes seeing the end of glaciers—the end of these sung histories—happen before our eyes. Glacial time, once was slow, is now fast. By telling the story of the life journey of glacier ice along with the life of a girl, the film makes this human-nature timescale tangible and warns the audience that the consequences of climate change are within our lifetimes. "Once a Glacier" shows a gesture of nurturing, and whether the girl’s efforts are successful or not, the work suggests a poignant level of grace and humility for moving forward into the future.
"Rockets, by Pillow" is the first of 4 unique lying-down VR narratives designed by award-winning creators Lucas Rizzotto (Where Thoughts Go, Flat Earth VR) & Chris Smoak. In this experience, you control a brave little Rocket named Crimson with an unusual pastime: and that is bringing dead planets back to life! But after a terrible event sends their Universe into chaos, Crimson must now team up with a cast of wacky characters to solve numerous puzzles and defeat a terrifying monster before their dimension is no more... all while uncovering the hidden truth about who Crimson really is.
Check out the Conference Session with Marcie Jastrow, one of the directors behind Shib the Metaverse: https://schedule.sxsw.com/2023/events/PP122528 Shib : The Shiba Ecosystem will thrive inside the Shib Metaverse project, meaning all tokens "Shib", "Leash", "Bone", and "Shibosis" will play an important role as phases roll out. The development of this project will also gravitate great partnershibs, and foundational resources for the community. We are building immersive experiences that will allow users to explore, benefit, and interact with a Shiba Inu Universe like no other. Our mission is to introduce a unique, fun, and exciting way to have users earn pass - The First hub to release is "Wagmi" Temple which will be primarily for Health and Wellness.
The augmented reality experience extends the virtual reality experience which lets the M_Plant avatar blossom in a hypothetical digital forest. Spring Odyssey AR Project invites you to meet a mutant tobacco plant, the M_Plant, an irradiated plant that spent time in the Red Forest, located 1 km from the Chernobyl power plant. Guided by the voice of the M_Plant – plant which makes the invisible radiations visible-, you'll discover the poetic Art&Science approach.
Upon being shown a photograph of a 6- year old boy, now digitally aged to 50, Yathay Pin’s realities collide. Haunted by his inner demons, his guilt surfaces for abandoning his son to escape during the Cambodian genocide. The Player, embodying Yathay, plummets into his mental prison, containing locked memories. As they experience Yathay’s journey, they discover his reason for living: to reclaim all that he lost and to reunite with his son. Therefore, finding his salvation and healing his heart.
Check out the Conference Session with Marcel van Brakel, one of the directors of the performative, multi-sensory, multi-user VR experience Symbiosis: https://schedule.sxsw.com/2023/events/PP1143387 Symbiosis is somewhere 200 years in the future, after climate change has changed the world beyond recognition. This post-human biotope might be rich and teaming with new artificial or enhanced biochemical life: new genetically altered life forms, (chemical) robots, hybrid technologies, and/or autonomous intelligent systems. They are all sharing resources, habitats, bodies and information in inclusive way on the premise of: Symbiosis. A performative, multi-user and multi-sensory VR installation with softrobotics and smell design in which the human body will be redesigned to research new ways of connection and kinship. Inspired by Donna Haraway Staying with the Trouble, in collab with PAM CUT.
“Temporal World” is a haptisonic VR experience in which artist Chloé Lee reflects on making meaning in places with varying levels of connection to her; from the personal to the familial to the foreign. We are guided to slow down while exploring Berlin and beyond in our increasingly accelerated time. As an Asian-American artist, she explores themes of migration through discovery, documentation and, in time, rooting herself in a new place. This VR world emphasizes the ephemerality of memory and learning to sense in new ways. These new ways of sensing, and in turn understanding, help create a more nuanced understanding of our interactions and, often invisible, dynamics within our environments.
Welcome to "The District VR," a music-driven 3D world full of vibrant games and virtual live entertainment. Put on a VR-headset and dive into an immersive, virtual twin of Berlin with photorealistic environments, various event spaces and virtual music-creation tools from DJ-equipment to samplers and more. Experience how it feels like to be a DJ in VR, use the provided equipment and mix music live in front of a virtual crowd. Visit immersive event spaces and get a glimpse of virtual live entertainment powered by VR. Our team of musicians and game developers is looking forward to meet you and walk you through the provided spaces.
Check out the Conference Session with the team behind The Eye and I Vol. I: https://schedule.sxsw.com/2023/events/PP125142 This story comes from the French word "surveillance", which in English originally referred to “eyes in the sky”, or a pair of eyes above us watching everything that happens below. "The Eye and I "is a VR work that reveals a surveillance crisis while inspiring audience self-reflection." Viewers will be able to explore the origin and development of "The Eye and I", and learn about the intertwined story of human society and "surveillance". After a series of dark journeys, viewers learn how "surveillance" is embedded in our culture in various forms and even affects our perception of reality. "The Eye and I" aims to help people escape the surveillance framework and its constraints.
"The Invited" reimagines the gothic story of Dracula in a solitary séance in which an animated pop-up book serves as a conduit for Dracula’s curse to re-enter the modern world. The participating audience are The Invited. One guest at a time is presented with an AR device and a hand crafted pop-up book. Each turn of the page reveals an intricate kirigami world that fills with AR holograms to tell the story of Vampire X’s unholy desires. The 20' experience is an experiment in merging finely crafted physical worlds with Augmented Reality technologies in order to tell a melancholy story.
"UnEarthed" is created by Factory 42 in conjunction with Meta Immersive Learning. Designed to inspire people to respect, protect and restore the planet, these stories are sequences of a multi story adventure, set across the Amazon and the Tongass National Forest, which is being released in 2023. The player is a new research assistant, following ‘The Professor’ - the world’s leading biodiversity expert - to gather research and learn about biodiversity. Guiding throughout is the Ecobot, Hazzi, a droid created by the Professor, voiced by Richard Ayoade (Pixar’s ‘Soul’, Disney +’s ‘The Mandalorian’).
"The Dark" featuring Monstercat artists Whipped Cream, Jasiah & Crimson Child, presents a new VR experience that blends electronic and opera music in an emotion-oriented story about a toxic relationship. Captured volumetrically in Vancouver, Canada at The Departure Lounge's Metastage, this VR experience showcase next-generational immersive storytelling, featuring amazing photorealistic holographic performances. Be taken into the future of storytelling and performance in the Metaverse, as you find yourself transported into the world of Whipped Cream's artistic vision. This piece makes you feel as though you are there within the story, rather than simply watching a story.
Check out the Conference Session with the team behind You Destroy. We Create.: https://schedule.sxsw.com/2023/events/PP1143182 What happens when museums can no longer show their collections, instead need to hide them? What does it mean to be a street artist when your city is being bombed? What music do you create when your country is under attack? "You Destroy. We Create" takes you on a 25-minute immersive journey through Ukraine, where artists and professionals from the cultural sphere are busy protecting, rebuilding and creating art. This topical documentary piece uses a combination of 360°/180° stereo videos, drone footage, photogrammetry scans and CG animations to bring you an emotionally engaging, urgent human story.
"Yuki MR" is an upbeat mix of the bullet-hell genre in Mixed Reality. Step into the wild imagination of a child and fly through multidimensional worlds holding her favorite action character, Yuki. Use your hands to fly Yuki and dodge loads of bullets that cross your path! Groove to the sound of mesmerizing music as you maneuver through each enemy wave, blasting the evil Yokaliens as they try to invade your room! As you embark on this enthralling spatial MR-designed gameplay, you’ll find yourself getting into a smooth choreography with enemies and bullets. After all, a child's imagination can cease evil, and the only way to save the universe is to play like a kid!