Reality Quest

The quest continues! We pick up where we left off last episode, part one of our journey with Michael Gourlay through augmented reality(AR).

Our conversation this time wanders into a myriad of topics, from hyper-reality to Doghouse Leathers, umbrella beatings to consumer AR and sharing of virtual experiences. We explore the broad range of challenges around building a new medium that is available for more people to benefit and thrive in.

In the second half of the episode, we take some time to backtrack again and reflect on some of the topics from our time with Mike. We revisit some fundamental concepts like hyperreality, Solipsism, and try to end with some ultimately positive outlooks on the future of mainstream XR.

Let us know if you enjoy the latter half of these episodes, as this is our first "solo" experimentation where we riff on topics we're deeply intrigued or curious about. We enjoyed the format and plan to do more with it in episodes moving forward, so your feedback and ideas are appreciated. We'd love to hear YOUR thoughts on thoughts. ;D

PART II - Interview
The History of Umbrellas: https://www.thoughtco.com/who-invented-the-umbrella-1992592
https://www.heddels.com/2018/09/taking-cover-the-long-history-of-the-umbrella/
HYPER-REALITY video by Keiichi Matsuda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs
Doghouse Leathers: https://www.doghouseleathers.com/
Oculus Quest headset: https://www.oculus.com/quest/?locale=en_US
FRIENDS episode about altruism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DowJfUmlzeI
The Void (Location-Based VR): https://www.thevoid.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQiA9orxBRD0ARIsAK9JDxRsoJhC2veG37R_Yig_G0rIFi2ebSJgevIZ8g0eTw8hVdpOyYBn3-8aAmGiEALw_wcB
Annual Oculus Connect Conference: https://www.oculusconnect.com/
Stack Overflow data website: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019

PART II - Thoughts on thoughts
Jean Baudrillard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Baudrillard
Rene Descartes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes
Altspace: https://altvr.com/
Rec Room: https://recroom.com/rec-room
Mozilla Hubs: https://hubs.mozilla.com/#/
The Under Presents: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/1917371471713228/?locale=en_US
Sleep No More: https://mckittrickhotel.com/sleep-no-more/
Malcolm Gladwell Podcast: http://revisionisthistory.com/
Lady Gaga interview with Oprah: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzuBTC2kZ8o
Black Mirror Episode: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4538072/
Mike's Fluids: http://www.mijagourlay.com/fluidAlso see: http://www.mijagourlay.com/
"Red Giant adopted my fluid model into their Trapcode Suite 15, Particular 4 and Form 4 products for Adobe After Effects."

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Happy New Year, daring explorers! The year is 2020, the onset of a brave new decade. The next ten years will undoubtedly create new waves in the way we interact with the world around us. In light of these exciting times, we felt it a fitting moment to try changing up our formula a bit.

This time around, Michael Gourlay enters the fold and shares his musings on life, AR and the Metaverse (from a giant beanbag, in a bathrobe, and with a cocktail in hand). An early leader of the HoloLens and Windows Mixed Reality teams at Microsoft, once a general manager of the Altspace VR team, now actively developing future platforms for augmented reality, he brings a wealth of knowledge and insight to this episode. We go spelunking into so many things, from screaming frogs to the Cold War, to tongue gloves and the ultimate composition and texture of the 'Metaverse'. Together we explore the world through the lens of augmented reality, uncovering an aspirational vision of a future freed from the information confines of our screens.

He was a wonderful guest to have on our show and helped inspire a continuous stream of lively conversation. By the end, the hour was late, and we had far more questions and thoughts than when we started. We raced through so many different topics and domains that we decided to split our recording with Mike into two episodes, so part two will pick up where we left off in our next bi-weekly release.

After stepping back from part one of our convo with Mike today, we've revisited the highlights in hopes of adding some helpful context and commentary for you on the juicy bits. We hope you enjoy this special retrospective episode and look forward to your feedback and thoughts, so please reach out with your ideas!

If you want to hear more from Mike, you can find him on Twitter @MiJaGourlay.

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Welcome back! Our guest this week is an accomplished Systems Engineer working in XR by day, and an avid community builder among the game development scene in Seattle. Tim Cullings is an active member of the Seattle Indies group and International Game Developers Association. He's also a passionate Karaoke aficionado. On his journey, he's experienced multiple companies grow from small teams into thousands strong, and has gained a wealth of wisdom from scaling up both systems and culture in those challenging environments.
One of the things he's most passionate about is cultivating new members in the developer community, so we've shared some of the groups he helps run locally in Seattle. If you have ideas you'd like to make a reality, are curious about getting started with game development, or just looking for a supportive and active community to get involved in, check them out. If you don't live in Seattle, your best bet is to find a local chapter of the IGDA and go to a meetup.

### Tim Cullings on Social Media
[Twitter](https://twitter.com/timcullings)
[Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/tim.cullings)

### Support or Join
[International Game Developers Association - IGDA](https://www.igdaseattle.org/)
[Seattle Indies](https://www.seattleindies.org/)

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We begin our week with Kiira Benzing, an award-winning avant-garde pioneer in virtual reality theater, immersive artistic expression, and mixed medium experiences. Coming from a background in traditional theater and filmmaking, Kiira was inspired to express in more than two dimensions when she was creating a traditional documentary and envisioned a better way to connect the audience to the story. Discovering XR could help her achieve her vision, in 2015 she dove into the industry head first and never looked back. In this episode, we get to hear all about Kiira's story, her wonderful and wildly successful experiments in VR, and some of her thoughts on how we can all work together to help the industry improve and expand its reach. She shares some important insights from her research in the use of avatars for acting as well as from her recently acclaimed projects ‘Loveseat’ and ‘Runnin’. Kiira is an amazing human, a generous soul, and an extremely talented multidimensional director whom you should be keeping track of. We can't wait to see what she does next!

Ways to reach out:
- doubleeye.co (her studio/ production company)
- Insta: @doubleeye
- Twitter: @DoubleEyePro

Articles where you can learn more:
- Alive in Plasticland https://medium.com/alive-in-plasticland
- Birds Bees and Multiple Realities https://noproscenium.com/birds-and-bees-and-multiple-realities-loveseat-at-venice-vr-684c530c8ac7

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In this episode, we jump right into the "blender of life" with Evie Powell on building pervasive experiences that cross the traditional boundaries of screens and play in games. We dig into what it means to craft experiences that are more naturally intuitive. The conversation also focuses on measures we can take to help build a healthier future enhanced by technology that helps instead of hinders us.

If you want to learn more about Evie and more of her amazing work, go check out her Twitter @parasiteEvie or her website https://www.vergeofbrilliance.com/

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This week, we kick back with Mat Chacon, the CEO & co-founder of the team behind Rumi, Doghead Simulations(https://www.dogheadsimulations.com/). During the conversation, we explore how VR is transforming and enabling new ways to learn together and from afar, as well as his visions of a life innately integrated with enhanced reality tech. We also veer off into lots of fun tangents on life and culture, so if you just wanna hear more of the XR-specifics, skim over the first half of the episode. Otherwise, site back and enjoy the ride!

If you want to hear more from Mat on life and VR, you can find him as @TheVRCEO on Twitter.

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This time we're joined by Tom Furness, the "grandfather" of VR. We begin our journey in the early days of space exploration amid a growing international arms race and the path which led him to create the first virtual interface for pilots. During our conversation, we explore how his experiences guided him in his lifelong mission to build a healthy foundation for the growth of XR into the future.
You can find out more about Tom's latest endeavors or support his non-profit Virtual World Society(https://www.virtualworldsociety.org/) by signing up as an annual member or getting involved directly to help out.

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Our Journey begins!
We take the red pill and wade deep into the waters of social experiences in virtual reality with help from our guest Katie Kelly, the Program Owner for AltspaceVR(https://altvr.com/) at Microsoft.

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