Voices of VR

About a Hero is a documentary that reenacts an imaginal, true crime documentary script written by an AI language model that was trained on a corpus of Werner Herzog content. It's a film that blends and blurs the lines between what's physically-captured, documentary material versus completely constructed and fabricated content generated by AI. It's the opening night documentary film at the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam, and it's also featured within the DocLab Spotlight. I had a chance to talk with director Piotr Winiewicz and producer Mads Damsbo about the process of making this piece as well as the set of rules that they created for themselves in order to make it a true collaboration between man and machine.Also be sure to check out my interview with the DocLab curators talking about all 28 projects in this year's selection.

This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.

Music: Fatality

I speak with the curators of the 28 immersive documentary projects being featured at the 18th edition of IDFA DocLab including Caspar Sonnen, Nina van Doren, and Toby Coffey. The theme of this year's program is "This is Not a Simulation," and there were many immersive projects that featured AI this year. We talked about each of the experiences in this year's program, except for the three projects I've previously covered at Venice Immersive 2024 (All I Know About Teacher Li, Fragile Home, & Impulse: Play with Reality) . We also briefly discussed the IDFA campaign around being complicit and challenging neutrality. For more information on each of the pieces in this year's program,, then be sure to check out the time stamps below to hear what the curators have to say.

12:15You Can Sing Me on My Way

15:01AI & ME

17:59About a Hero

22:54Oryza: Healing Ground

26:26Future Botanica

27:42Ancestors

31:00Drift

32:58Burn from Absence

36:13Sincerely, Victor Pike

37:22Limbophobia

40:20Ancestral Secret VR

41:04Drinking Brecht: an Automated Laboratory Performance

45:21Dollhouse for Queer Imaginaries

46:36The Liminal

49:38Me, A Depiction

53:55Walking Alone, Text You When I’m Home

56:00Rapture II – Portal

57:12ROAMance

60:02Speechless Witness of a Wandering Tree

61:52Thanks for Being Here

66:41Entropic Fields of Displacement

70:08Google Volume 2

71:46Sena, and Their Garden

73:20Töngö Sondi

75:33Bad Trip

This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.

Music: Fatality

Film Gate Interactive celebrated their 10-year anniversary in 2023, and I had a chance to get a retrospective recap from founder and curator Diliana Alexander as well as with board members Savannah Niles and James Powderly. Their 11th edition of Film Gate Interactive is happening December 4-8th, 2024 and so be sure to check out their sponsorship deck for more context on the many different partnerships and collaborations that Alexander has set up in this unique regional immersive festival. We talk about the curation process, the unique character of Miami and the various immersive excursions to explore the city, and a retrospective look at the founding and evolution of this cultivation of the immersive community within the unique cauldron and culture of Miami.

This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.

Music: Fatality

Lena Herzog's Any War Any Enemy is a hauntingly beautiful spatial poem that takes us on a liminal journey about nuclear annihilation. Rather than disassociating and letting power structures sleepwalk us all into catastrophe, she explores a new form of transcendental anti-war protest by leaning into an underlying existential angst that doesn't turn away from the human costs. It's a cautionary tale that serves as a wake-up call about the insanity of mutually-assured destruction, and an opportunity to use VR to ground apocalyptic abstractions into an embodied experience that allows us to bear witness to possible futures that should be avoided at all costs.

I previously spoke with Herzog about her first VR piece Last Whispers in 2019 about the extinction of languages. This piece is about the potential extinction of all of humanity via nuclear annihilation, and she's working in the third piece in her trilogy that is aiming to end on a more positive and optimistic note. I had a chance to catch up with Herzog virtually to unpack more about her process of creating this piece, and how she's exploring the more poetic and metaphoric dream logic within her immersive, anti-war poem.

I interviewed Kerestell Smith, Chief Creative Officer at Another Axiom and original solo creator of Gorilla Tag, at Meta Connect 2024. Another Axiom announced in June that Gorilla Tag has surpassed $100 million in lifetime revenue. We talk about the journey into creating Gorilla Tag, the underlying design philosophy of emphasizing embodied gameplay and proprioceptive consistency, as well as what's coming next in their follow-on title of Orion Drift. See more context in the rough transcript below.

Since this is the last episode in my series from Meta Connect 2024, then here's a list of all 20+ interviews and 12+ hours of my coverage from this year:

#1468: Kickoff of Meta Connect 2024 Coverage with Orion AR Glasses Hands-on Impressions with Tested's Norm Chan & CNET's Scott Stein

#1469: Analyst Anshel Sag on Meta Connect Announcements & Orion Glasses Impressions

#1470: Meta's Hyperscape Serves Cloud-Rendered, Photo Gaussian Splat Captures

#1471: Tyriel Wood & Zimtok5 on Oculus Quest 3S Tradeoffs with Quest 3

#1472: VR Training Trends Using AI with Virti's Courtney Harding

#1473: Learn XR's Dilmer Valecillos on Teaching XR Development & Meta Connect Announcement Impressions

#1474: Teaching Immersive Storytelling at ASU's Narrative and Emerging Media Program with Nonny de la Peña & Mary Matheson

#1475: A-Frame's Diego Marcos on WebXR Momentum and Integrations with Open Source AI

#1476: UploadVR Editor Ian Hamilton's Deep Reflections: AR vs VR, Ethical Dilemmas, & Future of Meta's Algorithmic Realities

#1477: Flat2VR Studios' Journey of Bringing 2D Games to VR with Eric Masher

#1478: Agile Lens 2018: The Intersection of Architecture, Theatre, & Storytelling with Alex Coulombe

#1479: Agile Lens 2023: Selling High-End Real Estate with VR, Unreal's Meta Humans. Pixel Streaming, & AI Experiments

#1480: Agile Lens 2023: Hands on with Four Seasons VR Demo & A Christmas Carol VR 2023

#1481: Agile Lens 2024: Context on Boz's Apology to VR Devs, Orion AR Glasses Impressions, & Unreal Engine Mediation with Apple/Meta

#1482: Mixed Reality Gameplay Innovations & Design Insights from "Starship Home" Co-Directors Mark Schramm & Ashley Pinnick

#1483: Dimensional Double Shift Combines Multi-Player Co-Op, "Job Simulator" Gameplay, & Hand Tracking

#1484: Cas & Chary on Meta Connect Announcements & Using Ray-Ban Meta Smartglasses to Stay Connected

#1485: Fitness Flow States with "Starwave" Design Innovation Leads & Finding Love within VR

#1486: Going All in with Gaussian Splats: Gracia's Viewer, AI Training, & Photoreal Capture with VR Fund's Tipatat Chennavasin

#1487: XR Evangelists JoyReign & JDun on Horizon World Trends & Meta Connect Announcements

#1488: Nima Zeighami on Delivering WebXR Content with Infinite Reality's Ethereal Engine Acquisition

#1489: Gorilla Tag Design Philosophy & Embodied Gameplay Deep Dive with Kerestell Smith

Here's the launch trailer for Gorilla Tag:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivwQ2DUjcHI

Here's a developer snapshot preview of their next title of Orion Drift:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xjnw_skc9g

This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.

Music: Fatality

I interviewed Nima Zeighami, VP of Product at Infinite Reality, at Meta Connect 2024. See more context in the rough transcript below.

This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.

Music: Fatality

I interviewed XR Evangelists JoyReign Creator of Joy In The Morning Show and CEO of Onyx Leaf Media as well as JDun of the Getting Things Dun YouTube channel, Get'Em To The Metaverse Podcast, & Chief Metaverse Officer of Onyx Leaf Media, at Meta Connect 2024. See more context in the rough transcript below.

Here's the Question HDMI video that JDun mentioned in the podcast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8QDvoEJLps

This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.

Music: Fatality

I interviewed Tipatat Chennavasin, General Partner and co-founder of Venture Reality Fund, at Meta Connect 2024 about why he has gone all-in with Gaussian Splatting by investing in the Gracia.ai and their viewer that's on the Quest store. We also talk about some of the news from Meta Connect, Quest 3S excitement, the merits of AAA games like Batman Arkham Shadow to bring more people into VR, and other some experiences and demos that caught his attention at Meta Connect 2024. See more context in the rough transcript below.

This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.

Music: Fatality

I interviewed Job Stauffer and Robin Orr, the two design innovation leads on Starwave, at Meta Connect 2024. They also met and fell in love in VR, and each share their respective journeys into the space through building community around VR fitness experiences. See more context in the rough transcript below.

Here's the launch trailer for Starwave:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LtG2qnPeSY

This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.

Music: Fatality

I interviewed Casandra Vuong and Chary Keijzer of the Cas and Chary YouTube channel, at Meta Connect 2024 about all of the latest announcements, their journey into their XR coverage, and how they use the Ray-Ban Meta Smartglasses to stay connected to each other. See more context in the rough transcript below.

Here's their video about the Quest 3S launch produced while onsite at Meta Connect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrGZ7ef84tw

This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.

Music: Fatality