XR Experience Spotlight at Fairmont
'Address Unknown: Fukushima Now' is an immersive VR documentary that takes audiences to the heart of Fukushima to meet the survivors living in the shadow of the crisis today. Using volumetric capture & photogrammetry technology, the documentary transports viewers into an experience that explores the disaster and the lasting impact it's had on communities and the environment. We reveal how a community endures in the aftermath of trauma and recalls memories of homes they can longer return to. Through local voices, the experience examines the meaning of home and how it may be redefined in the face of disaster.
'All I Know About Teacher Li' is a 20-minute interactive mixed reality documentary unveiling how a Chinese art student in Italy sparked one of the largest democratic protests in China by relentlessly sharing bad news on Twitter. The experience blends hand-drawn animation, 3D converted archival footage, and immersive interaction to place viewers within Teacher Li's transformative journey and explore the global impact of social media activism.
What kind of world will we leave for future generations? In 'Ancestors', you’ll embark on a thrilling, collective journey six generations into the future. Guided by your own smartphone, this interactive experience uses AI to create connections between you and others in the room. Together, you’ll explore the challenges of tomorrow, discovering how collaboration is key to shaping a better world. Join this immersive, fun, and thought-provoking adventure that brings people together in an entirely new way!
In 'Anouschka', an augmented-reality mobile game, a curious teen dives into her grandmother's memories, piecing together forgotten stories and the hidden magic of her neighborhood. As she unravels the threads of her family’s past, she discovers how music and resilience can transform a colorless world. Each discovery deepens her connection to the people and places around her, leading to a journey that’s as surprising as it is moving. With immersive game play and a heartfelt narrative, 'Anouschka' invites players to explore the spaces between memory, heritage, and the unexpected power of small, profound acts.
How can listeners connect to music in an age of streaming anonymity? 'A Number from the Ghost' is an innovative multimedia project created by artist and musician Peter Adams that builds a virtual environment for listening. The web-based experience allows players to explore a series of interactive music videos inspired by dreams, memories, technology, and the surreal. Wander through a shifting landscape of hallucinatory museums, cosmic marshes, vine-covered halls, and chrome towers in a genre-defying melding of video games, short film, and generative art.
Artificial intelligence is everywhere—from the photo enhancer in our phones to self-driving cabs and virtual assistant everywhere. But what is it exactly? Chom5ky vs Chomsky: A playful conversation on AI is an engaging and collaborative virtual reality experience that invites us to examine the promises and pitfalls of AI. Machine intelligence is promoted as our inevitable future. We would logically mean we should all be able to ask: What are we hoping to achieve with it? For whom? At what cost? In VR, visitors enter a world of curiosity and play, where they are greeted by CHOM5KY—an artificial entity inspired by and built from the vast digital traces of renowned professor Noam Chomsky.
'EchoVision' is a mixed reality experience that allows participants to experience the world of bats using sound visualization. With a series of custom-designed, bat-shaped headsets from the open-source HoloKit, people can echolocate like bats. People scream and see the environment bouncing back to navigate in darkness. With AI, we get to correlate bat calls with certain behaviors such as mating or kissing. We composed these AI-categorised bat calls into baby bat lullaby, love songs, etc and set against their natural habitats. Inspired by Thomas Nagel's “What Is it Like to Be a Bat?”, 'EchoVision' delves into the mystery of understanding the experiences of other species.
In 'Fly To You', 85-year-old Kang Songjeol carries lifelong regret over her last words to her cousin Saetbyul before her family's sudden escape from North Korea in 1950. At 11, she shouted in anger, "Don't ever come back!"—words that haunted her for seven decades. Memories of their seaside village, where pollack hung thick in the sky, bring both solace and torment. Through intimate reflections and poetic imagery, the story reveals how war tore families apart overnight, leaving dreams as their only bridge. As time slips away, Songjeol's plea to meet Saetbyul "even if just in dreams" captures the enduring pain of a nation divided by ideology and war.
'Future Botanica' connects digital nature to various physical locations and forms of nature. It serves as a growing database of new life forms, future speculations, and stories about nature created with and by people. In FB, the user becomes a planter, designing an ecosystem with non-existent digital plants and organisms and planting them in the existing physical nature. This act plants ideas, concepts, and stories about how we perceive future nature. Using AR and AI, the current state of nature blends with designs, ideas, stories, and speculations about the future state of the location. As a user/planter, you can play and learn how ecosystems work, experiencing and envisioning the future.
We are comforted by facts, by the familiarity of things we know to be “true.” The sun rises in the east. There are twenty-four hours in a day. I exist. These truisms simplify our lives, enable us to get through the process of living. We are not afraid to leap into the air, because we know we will land on the ground. The 'Just for You Trilogy' explores the possibilities that exist beyond these everyday patterns, that blur the lines between dream and reality. Combining Riverbed’s three award-winning 360VR films (All That Remains, Over the Rainbow, and A Simple Silence) into a single experience, the Just for You Trilogy immerses the audience in a surreal meditation on memory, death, and...
'Origins' is an awe-inspiring immersive film that takes visitors through life’s epic journey. Across four captivating chapters, it traces the story from the birth of the universe, the formation of the sun and earth, the emergence of complex organisms, to the first forms of life. With stunning visual art and immersive soundscapes, the experience masterfully blends science and art to tell the extraordinary tale of our origins, inspiring reflection on nature's beauty. This international collaboration showcases visual art by the renowned digital artists Markos Kay, Martin Salfity, Thomas Vanz, Davy Evans, Gokhan Tekin, Susi Sie, Teun van der Zalm and Roman Hill.
"Oto's Planet" follows the peaceful life of Oto, who loves nothing more than lounging in his hammock and enjoying the fruits of the single tree on his tiny planet. His tranquility is shattered when Exo, a hyperactive and cumbersome cosmonaut, crash-lands in a small spacecraft. The ensuing attempts at communication and cohabitation between these two unlikely roommates are fraught with difficulty.
In a world overwhelmed by noise and distractions, this immersive film reconnects us to the powerful art of the album. Built around Salvage Enterprise, an emotionally rich record by The Polyphonic Spree, the film takes you on a cinephonic journey of hope - vulnerable, courageous, and deeply human - transforming the album’s themes of resilience and renewal into an uplifting cinematic experience. With inventive visual storytelling that maximizes the artistic and emotional impact of the album’s songs, this film envelopes audiences in a healing world where music and art come together to remind us that hope endures, and through it, we can discover the fullness and beauty of the human experience.
Welcome in our immersive and AI driven candy store! What flavor do you like? Did you know that color, even more than taste, is the most essential part of candy? We serve national colors, political colors, corporate, military and body colors. Sugar causes the brain to release dopamine, which gives you a feeling of happiness. Soon the need for even more sugar arises. The annual world consumption of sugar is almost 120 million tons and its production is linked to a history of both imperialist politics, commercial profits and exploitation, military conflict and racism. Take a lollypop or candy cane and immerse yourself in this mixed reality experience!
Symphoni transforms classical music into a rhythmic adventure. With a conducting wand in hand, players can cast spells and open portals to audio-reactive worlds, embodying magical personas from fairies of light to wizards of darkness. As players perform timeless symphonies, they are transported into enchanting worlds tailored to each composition—from the ethereal waters of Swan Lake to the dark realms of Fate Symphony. The synthesis of mixed reality, hand-tracking, audio and spatial reactivity makes each song experience a breathtaking interactive journey, bringing classical music to life in a truly synesthetic way.
'The Art of Change' is an immersive, audio-visual journey through time, space, and pivotal life moments. Using a unique 'feedback loop' of voice memos addressed to past and future selves, the project weaves personal reflections and archetypal experiences into a narrative that transcends the individual. Entirely painted and animated in VR using Quill, the piece explores the solitude of a wilderness tree, the challenge of a mountain peak, and the yearning for escape from an ordinary office. Seamless transitions and evolving environments redefine how we experience music, as the viewer navigates life’s complexity through an interactive, multi-sensory world.
Live Theatre in VR. Two actors play multiple characters on a cyber-punk journey. NARRATIVE SUMMARY: Adaptive Learning Industries is about to launch the New Day update through legislation that passed with little public support. Uncanny Alley’s “Metizens” will soon feel the amnesia-like effects from weaponized Radio Frequency waves. Cyber-punk hacker-whiz, Gh0st, breaks a group of protesters out of jail to lead them and her increasingly sentient Service-Bot, Atom, to safety through a hacked portal, out of the city and to a new metaverse. They must stick together, evade capture, and eventually decide whether to leave Uncanny Alley or stay and fight for their freedom, and their home.