I interviewed The Guardians Of Jade Mountain director Hayoun Kwon and producer Richard Turco at Venice Immersive 2024. See more context in the rough transcript below.
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.458] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of VR Podcast. It's a podcast that looks at the structure and forms of immersive storytelling and the future of spatial computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. So continuing my series of looking at different immersive stories from Venice Immersive 2024, today's episode is with a piece called The Guardians of Jade Mountain. So this is a piece by Interspace VR where they've done a number of different immersive stories over the years. And this feels like a piece that you would see in a museum where you may be learning about the colonial histories of these different lands, especially like in Taiwan, looking at like the Japanese imperial moments. So there's like an anthropologist who ended up creating a friendship with one of the indigenous members of the community there in Taiwan. And then their countries were at odds, but they ended up having a friendship. And so it's a piece where you're climbing up Jade Mountain. And then through this climbing, you end up being guided by these little animals and trying to create this kind of redirected path that is allowing you to go in a certain direction. And then all the worlds are kind of being edited behind you. So it just gives you this sense of going on a proper walkabout and an adventure. to kind of learn more about this colonial history within the context of Taiwan. Also, I think it's worth noting that there was a decision that was made from a protection standpoint in order to have additional throughput through this piece, which meant that there was multiple people going through at the same time, but you would see some trace of the other people by having this big static column on the context of your environment. And it really didn't make sense narratively for why it would be there, but it was just more of a production side, a decision and trade-off in order to increase the throughput through a piece, but having this experience of having these big static columns that were there that I personally found a little bit disruptive, but can understand the need to try to figure out new ways of making some of these different pieces more economically viable. Yeah. So we're covering all that and more on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with the team behind the Guardians of Jade Mountain happened on Monday, September 2nd, 2024. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:02:17.492] Hayoun Kwon: Hello, my name is Ha Yoon. I am one of the co-founders of Innerspace VR and I'm the director of the Guardians of Jade Mountain. So we are happy to present our experience in Venice Film Festival. And this project is interactive installation in virtual reality in larger scale and 10 meter by 10 free roaming experience. It's a multiplayer up to three and we invite you to immerse yourself in Jade Mountain environment and discover the hidden story about Mori, the Japanese anthropologist and the Boonun chief Aji-man who was in revolt against Japanese government and meet the animal who will guide us the way to the top of the mountain.
[00:03:10.720] Richard Turco: Hi, I'm Richard Turco. I'm the producer of Innerspace Studio and also managing director and producer of The Guardians of Jane Mountain, an experience which has been co-produced with Volos Film in Taiwan, as it is a Taiwanese story which inspired us for the project.
[00:03:33.506] Kent Bye: Great. And maybe you could give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into VR.
[00:03:40.407] Hayoun Kwon: So I have a background of art school then I made several short films and I jumped into VR and I was fascinated by VR environment so I made several projects in free roaming installation.
[00:04:02.870] Richard Turco: Regarding my background, I come from cinema. First, funding short feature documentaries. And at one point, I met Ayunen Baltazar, who had co-founded the studio Innerspace. and I was looking for some new experience, and the medium and this new language that was appearing was really fascinating, and I wanted to jump in and try to see, working with two artists and a studio team, what we could imagine to tell stories, because that's what fascinated me in cinema, telling stories, and that's still fascinating me with virtual reality.
[00:04:49.520] Kent Bye: Okay, and so when did you first come across virtual reality or when did you decide that you want to actually pursue making experiences within VR?
[00:05:00.612] Hayoun Kwon: The first time I saw the virtual reality experience was in 2011 when I was in art school with Baltazar and his graduate project was in VR but I waited several years before doing our first virtual reality project because I waited a good moment to do it because I don't want to do it for small reason so before I jumped in VR I made a short film about the North Korea and so it was about observing and observing the people so I treated with many distant and it was black and white and really cold approach. So after that I met Mr. Kim and I heard about the story of demilitarized zone about Korea and then for the first time I needed something more, I needed to feel more space and his feeling as if I'm there with him. So that's why I needed to find some new medium to give a subjective view with Mr. Kim. So that's why I started in VR in 2014. Yes. Okay. Yeah.
[00:06:23.976] Kent Bye: And when did you first come across virtual reality then?
[00:06:27.304] Richard Turco: Well, with Ayoun and Balthazar, I first crossed the path of virtual reality. I knew them for long and we met when they were doing their studies. And at the time I was working on cultural policies, public cultural policies for contemporary art. and I was really interested in presenting the first early works they have been doing at school. So that was the first contact with people first. And then when they founded the studio I went to visit them and Balthazar put a headset on my head and it was an experience on the sea. I kept my breath immediately because I was so afraid to be undersea. And it was a huge impact. I immediately understood what kind of impact it could have on people experiencing immersion with this medium. So that was my first contact.
[00:07:27.683] Kent Bye: Okay. And I know that after I did your experience, you had given a little bit more context of looking at the decolonized histories and trying to dig into a little bit more, maybe could get a little bit more context for how this project came about.
[00:07:43.297] Hayoun Kwon: So this is a part of a trilogy dealing with the memory and legacy of Asian colonial history. So first episode was Kubo Walk the City. It's about censorship of South Korea under the Japanese occupation. And the second episode is our project, The Guardians of Jade Mountain. So it's a story about Japanese occupation. of Taiwan on early 20th century. So this third one will be about Korean war and we plan to start the episode next year. Okay.
[00:08:27.376] Kent Bye: And so is this episode one or two or three?
[00:08:30.712] Richard Turco: We can't say there are really an above the episode because we made the three episodes as the findings were coming to us. Let's say that we had this first initial idea of this trilogy and we identified some subjects we wanted to deal with, strong subjects that could tell this story with different points of views. So we started with Kubo Walks the City thanks to a museum in Korea, a press museum that gave us access to the archives, the censored archives of the time. And quite at the same time when Kubo was released, we discovered an article in the press, Taiwanese press, telling the story of these two amazing characters that were supposed to be enemies. Their countries, or let's say their people, were former official enemies, but they found a way because they shared values to become friends in the end. And the one on the Korean War, is really following the path and the opportunity that has Ha-Yoon to meet one of the last Korean veterans of this war, just before he died, and to record all his memories. And at the same time, there was this unknown story of the French troops that were sent in the UN battalion to fight against Chinese and North Koreans at the time. So it has been the connection between these two stories that made the subject of the third piece.
[00:10:07.682] Kent Bye: Okay. And in this story, there seems to be this anthropologist who is studying the indigenous cultures in Taiwan and that you're retracing his steps, taking photos, documenting, and then having animals be led along the way towards this path of meeting this other character that at the end he becomes friends with. And so... Maybe you could describe where did you come across this as a story and how does this encapsulate the deeper story that you're trying to tell?
[00:10:41.329] Hayoun Kwon: So I'm Korean and so Korea also share a part of history with Taiwan that of the Japanese occupation. About 10 years ago, I made a documentary to revisit the history of the Japanese occupation. So the enemy of the past may still be the enemy for our generation. That was my question. So for the first, I went to Japan. Then I came back to Korea to revisit the place where we kept the memory of the suffering of the Japanese occupation to compare how each country keeps the same history differently. But after all these trips, I still felt as if I had not finished my assignment. So when finally when I heard about this story between Maury and Aziman, it appeared to me as a new proposition and it will not only response but like one of a proposition possible. When we see two characters united by their respect for nature and they are ready to go beyond the border that separates them, these two men inspired a lot to continue this project.
[00:12:05.054] Kent Bye: Okay. And yeah, I guess as you're coming in as a producer, then what are some of the considerations for how to shape it or structure or, you know, if there was different creative decisions? Because there's a lot of like locomoting around and unique change blindness stuff where things are getting erased behind me. And it gives me this feel of like being able to walk around in a space that's like an infinite space. And there's interactions with the light and all the other stuff. So as you're thinking about this project, what was your role as producer in trying to help contain and structure it all?
[00:12:37.250] Richard Turco: Yeah, my role as a producer is not only seeking for money for the project. So I'm really dedicated to working with the artists. And we try to find the balance between the constraints of production and the fact that we want to do the best artwork possible. I don't really interfere in the artwork because I work with talented artists and they have their visions. So yeah, I respect that a lot. But sometimes, yes, for example, for the Guardians of Jane Mountain, when we discussed about this press article, speaking about this story, we really worked closely with Ayoun, imagining what could be the user experience, discovering in the same footsteps than the explorers of the time, the Jane Mountain and the culture of the indigenous culture. And for example, one of my concerns in that project, the concern that I've shared with our co-producer in Taiwan, was how to respect the indigenous culture we were speaking about the best. And it was a huge challenge because, you know, it's a sensitive topic, especially nowadays. So we had many consultants, we made contact with many consultants, Bunun consultants, from the Bunun tribe, and you can also see that the experience is translated in Bunun, there's a voiceover in Bunun, so we tried to go as far as we could go to not be in the cultural appropriation and just be the witness of a story while respecting all the people that took part in the story, the Japanese and the Bununs.
[00:14:23.519] Kent Bye: Okay and in terms of the structure of the as people are walking through this experience there's all these animals that are coming up and they're helping guide you to where to go next and so it's also a piece that has like a throughput of like three people at the same time even though it's a single player person I can kind of see outlines of them kind of like a static column of light that sometimes occludes my view sometimes steps right in front of what's happening and so When I did it, there was only one other person that was doing it at the same time, but I did find that it was like, okay, this feels like a throughput decision to get more people through here, but that's actually kind of like disrupting my flow of my experience. And so it felt like other people in the space were more of a distraction than something that was like helping me feel more present to the experience. And so, yeah, I'm wondering if you can kind of elaborate on that first decision of the being able to have a lot more people go through it, but the trade-off of dampening the experience of people that may have some of those static columns occluding and blocking other things that are in the scene.
[00:15:32.938] Hayoun Kwon: So I totally agree with you. So if I had a choice, I would just let let's see only for one person. But to make a shorter waiting line, we made a choice. And for the beginning, it was more simple and it's less disturbing. But for the security reason, we have to make a highly visible for this. So For the festival, we do up to three persons, but for the exhibition case, we show only up to two people to guarantee the deep immersion.
[00:16:11.788] Richard Turco: There's also a matter of economic model at the time for the installation. So artistically, ideally, we would love to have only one person at a time in 100 square meters, and that would be perfect. But when you have to show this kind of experience in museums, which pay a fee, they want to have a ticketing model. And so we try to find the right balance with going to up to three people at the same time in the space, even if we had, on the other hand, to make some sacrifices on the artistic side. So that's always... Now that the market for experiences is... consolidating a little, there's this issue we have to tackle, how to find a balance between the artistic side and the economic side of the free roaming installation.
[00:17:09.105] Hayoun Kwon: Before yesterday I met distributor from US and he asked me can we put six person together so I said no and he understood my choice was really clear and he didn't want to engage more discussion after because he understood I will not allow more than three.
[00:17:30.956] Richard Turco: And the fact is, the more people you put, the less interactions you can do. So this is also a fragile balance. If you want to have 10 persons at a time, you have to have an artistic approach where these 10 people are guided by a guide who will explain to them what's happening around, but they can't interact with the environment because no one can master 10 people interacting with an environment altogether. Or you have to think multiplayer with lots of connection. It's a totally different approach. So this is also this balance. If we want to exploit the medium, take the best of the medium in terms of interactions, the fewer the people are, the best you can do in terms of proposing to the audience the interactions.
[00:18:22.318] Kent Bye: Yeah, I think part of the main conceit of the piece is that they're gonna have a couple of different types of guidance to guide you through the space and so the very first one I missed because it was like a red line on the floor with like going over the camera and it wasn't immediately obvious what I needed to do but once I found the camera I had to like crouch down and get onto my knees in order to like, and then I had to stick my face into it. So those were like three things that were like, I didn't see it. Then when I did see it, it was too low. And then I didn't think to like put my face into a camera because if I was taking a photo, then why would there be a movie inside of it? So it didn't make sense for me for why that would make sense in terms of like the skeuomorphic affordances of taking a photo back in the era that he was taking it. But after that, there's a bunch of animals that are really cute and do a great job of, after those initial waypoints, it was a lot more seamless to go through the experience and go from point to point following these little animals. And then I would turn around and everything would change. And so I think you manage to spatially edit in a way that have these animals being able to guide my attention so that you can do the magic behind me and clean everything up. And so... But I'd love to hear any elaboration on this system of guiding people through the world and the choice to use these animals and dynamic transitions to help guide your attention and help instruct the people for how they should be walking up this virtual mountain.
[00:19:49.901] Hayoun Kwon: Walking was the common element of a preview project. So by its primary sense, everyone has their own speed to walk. So for this project, I wanted to People followed Maurice's steps. So it was important to walk around and go to the top of the Jade Mountain. And for this, because due to the physical space limitation, we had to trick the spectator. So he believed he had worked more than he really did. For that, we recreated a system that displays and hides different environments progressively. In the end, you come back to the same starting point, but the environment was completely changed, so we give you the new environment constantly to offer you the voyage on the faithful reproduction of Jade Mountain.
[00:20:56.468] Kent Bye: If you have any comments on the navigation system.
[00:21:01.353] Richard Turco: It's always difficult to onboard people and installation. And often we see people missing the first interaction. And so you have to repeat that until they integrate the way they will interact with technology. with the environment. At the beginning, the structure of the project was really focused on the three levels of the Jade Mountain with the shadow theater. And as we were moving forward on the project, during Ayoun's researches, we gathered more and more material, like the map that is at the beginning of the project, which is a map that has been drawn by the anthropologist, or like the museum in the end of the project. It's also a work in progress, a process. While we were gathering new information, we were enriching the experience with that and for each part thinking what would be the best interaction. And some things we had not anticipated. For example, we use early 90s photo camera in the experience we hadn't anticipated but now with the selfie culture when people want to stand in front of the camera and not behind because they don't know how it worked at the time so there are really strange issues and it's the feedback of the audience that makes you realize that some interaction or maybe
[00:22:27.612] Kent Bye: unnatural but for different reasons that some of them we we couldn't imagine like this one yeah and there's a really distinct other part of this experience is that you're holding a lantern and that lantern is able to shine a light and have different reflections and you're interacting with moss that fly away which is another waypoint guiding your direction to different waypoints and then there's these shadow puppet animations that happen that are i found it like sometimes difficult to know like okay which side is which what's the larger context and it may have been said but i'm looking at the visuals and so i'm trying to get a sense of if i were only watching these animations would i know what side is what and what's the larger context what's the war what's happening But as you're walking up the Jade Mountain, there's a number of different montage sequences of these battle scenes. And so I'm wondering if you could provide a little bit more context for the decision to use that shadow puppet aesthetic rather than something that is volumetric in the space.
[00:23:34.318] Richard Turco: Yeah, the shadow puppet. We used that to have a poetic way to tell the story, but also this story of this friendship, we had only the testimony of the anthropologist while he was leaving Taiwan after his research. So we couldn't, let's say, cross information to know if what he was telling was absolutely how it happened. So that's also why we use the shadow puppet, like it's the part that in the documentary we can't say it happens exactly as it is told by one of the characters, as we don't have the testimony. So we played with that, also with the approach, the animation. And we played with these different elements to find the balance between all the documentation and all the documentary we had gathered. For example, all the trees, all the animals are all from the photos and the notebooks and the sketches made by the anthropologists. So we know that's accurate regarding this history. But what he says, yeah, for sure it's true. But how much he, let's say, make his history also a political message towards his nation. So how much maybe he had changed some stuff. Maybe this friendship was a connection not so strong. Maybe it was stronger. So yeah, we tried to balance it with these more poetic moments.
[00:25:13.741] Hayoun Kwon: We started this project from 2020 and in 2021, during residency in Kaohsiung Film Festival, we made some research about Mori and Aji-man. At that time, we were in contact with a young anthropologist in Taiwan. and he helped us to find the trace of Maury, but he couldn't find any trace about Ajiman. Then finally the conclusion was that maybe this story was made by Japanese people to make more friendly with Taiwan culture. So I was so sad that I couldn't find any trace of Ajiman. But two years later, after the other researching, we found out the Morris book. And finally, when we recorded the voiceover for Bo-Noon Voice, actor, he told me that Maury was, he confirmed that Maury was really important for Boonwoon people and Maury received Boonwoon's name so they just know that he was really important for Boonwoon so it's a little bit difficult to prove their relationship but in Maury's book he testimony about the strong friendship with Azima so that's why the project was developed in this way.
[00:26:48.556] Kent Bye: Okay, so it sounds like that there's some ambiguity within some of those fights and battles itself, considering that they were more from oral history testimony rather than documented, hard, empirical evidence on some of this stuff. Is that kind of the idea, that there was a little bit of a dreamscape that allowed you to have a poetic imagination of what happened without being too specific?
[00:27:13.001] Richard Turco: Well let's say that in the end we were able after the four years that last from the production from the initial early development we had confirmation of many of the information but we had already an artistic approach So we tried to balance all the information we were gathering with this artistic approach on our way. And the ultimate thing is really in the last mile that we discovered the last speech of Maury before he leaves Taiwan, where he himself tells all the story that happens. But before that, until let's say the last year of production, we hadn't this piece. so we hadn't found it yet and it was published in a book and it was really a surprise to have all this confirmation of the story and we were only in an ongoing production and so we Yeah, we adapted. It was really a dialogue between the research, the documentary part, and the more artistic part and the more poetic part of the project, depending on all the information we were gathering and the ongoing production we were doing.
[00:28:34.062] Kent Bye: Yeah, it seems like that, you know, once you get to the point where the anthropologist is meeting this indigenous person that there is a strong connection and then afterwards there's a number of books that he publishes and it ends in tragedy in some way in terms of like what ends up happening with his life after that. But a lot of his life's research was to try to gather up some of this research on the indigenous populations of Taiwan and so Maybe you could just elaborate on why was this particular friendship so important to the main character of this anthropologist? What the symbolism of that friendship might be for the story that you're telling?
[00:29:14.640] Hayoun Kwon: So for me Aziman and Mori represent the enemy of the past from the point of view of the nation. But when they meet individually they solid the friendship because they could accept each other. So that's why in the end of the project we see the shadow of two men become only the one because between two men I think there were jade mountain this is the symbolic of the nature so maybe through the nature and respect for each other they could make a strong connection so This kind of conciliation was really inspiring me for our situation today and it's mirroring with my previous project.
[00:30:10.907] Richard Turco: In fact, you have always in history the story of people that is different than the story of other nations. In every war, you have some histories, this kind of histories of friendship. And the approach of the trilogy that Ayoun is still making is really that is showing the story of average people the big story behind and how average people when they're not confronted to the political issues of their nation you know you live a normal life in a normal city or in normal countryside and suddenly you're trapped in a war and you have to fight with people you have nothing against them So we always want to, and I explore that, always want to show what can average people think or live in a context, a bigger context than them, and especially bigger confrontation than them, because it's, yeah, for... For Maury, at the end, when he left Taiwan, after having done all his research, he made a political statement. He said, my country shouldn't try to erase the indigenous people. So he came to that progressively through a friendship, through knowing people like him, as simple as him, with different way of life, but... Yeah, a friendship that was born. In the end, he made a political statement for the political position of his nation. So we can see this kind of evolution coming from personal encounter, a personal moment that can join the bigger story, the bigger history.
[00:32:03.962] Kent Bye: Okay, yeah, and so after they meet, the epilogue in some ways is that you get put into this museum, you're in virtual reality, so it's like a virtual museum, but it's got a bunch of artifacts from the indigenous cultures from Taiwan that are kind of aggregated there, and you learn a little bit about the fate of what happens to the anthropologist, but... Yeah, maybe you could talk about what you were trying to achieve or say or tell by creating this virtual museum with this exhibition of all these different artifacts after they have that final meeting.
[00:32:38.140] Richard Turco: Well, the museum was also to state the work that has done Maury and all that he collects as traces of his work. So that's really a part, but that's mostly a part of transition with the following scene where we are at sea and he has left, Maury has left Taiwan and we... We learn at this moment that all that he had collected, except the few pieces that are still at the Taiwan National Museum, all that he collected has been burned in a big fire. So he has lost quite everything. And this museum was a way to create a museum for Maury of what he had collected and what has disappeared mostly after that.
[00:33:29.480] Kent Bye: Okay. So because he loses it, then it creates that tension between it's here now, but then the sad news that it was kind of lost to the fire. And that in some ways, the telling of the story is trying to reconnect some of these hidden histories or parts of the history that aren't well documented or discussed. And so, yeah, I don't know if you have any comments around the intention to try to tell the story in order to bring light into a story that isn't well known or hasn't really been told that much before.
[00:34:02.737] Hayoun Kwon: Yes, and especially I think virtual reality is the best way to create empathy about the people who we don't remember well and the memory in the world of despairing. The story of the Mori and the Ajinman, when we do in VR, it's not just a story, but after the experience, it becomes our story. So I think in VR, we can deliver a more intimate testimony and it creates a collective memory with VR.
[00:34:41.567] Richard Turco: Yeah, there are a lot of unknown stories like that in the history. We only remember the story of the nations and it's not often that we have the opportunity to remember the story of normal people who had lived in that, except in big dramas. But I think it's, as we say, the duty we have to make this memory live and to make the memory of average people that had lived in big historical moments, how they had lived it and what's left of it. So we really wanted to bring to light this history of these two characters and even a lot of people from Taiwan they see the installation and they say we didn't know about that so it's really for us important to have this kind of feedback and to make you have people from all the world but also from the country that is concerned by the story discover such bits of heritage
[00:35:49.025] Hayoun Kwon: And the project we will work for the next year also about the testimony of a former soldier in Korea who worked in French battalion. And he has the opinion completely different than official history. So this project also we bring his voice, individual voice to the public.
[00:36:15.157] Kent Bye: Okay, great. And yeah, I guess as we start to wrap up, I'd love to hear from each of you what you think the ultimate potential of virtual reality and immersive storytelling might be and what it might be able to enable.
[00:36:31.380] Richard Turco: Well, what's the potential of virtual reality? There is a lot to tell about because it's still a work in progress and it's a medium that is so young and so powerful at the same time and with the technology evolving really fast so Now we try to imagine the strongest story we could tell with this medium and sometimes there is a new technology happening like hand tracking and for example for the last piece about the Korean War we began to think about it and there was hand tracking that was coming on the new hardware. And so we were really interested in exploring the potential to make the interaction with the hand tracking. So we see there is a huge potential and it's very difficult to predict it at the same time. So we take pieces of what's happening, the stories we have in mind, the new texts that are arriving, the evolution of the market, because now everybody is thinking about what kind of economic model we can have for the experience. So we have to take all these pieces and try to bring them together to do the best we can do with the medium. But on our side, we still believe that virtual reality It doesn't have to be a medium like cinema where you're only spectator. For us it's really important to work on interactions but we see that some economic models for the big installations can't go this way because they need to have many people attending and a very strong ticketing model. Yeah, we haven't found the answer. We just try to find our own way between all these elements and try to do our best to tell the best story to the audience. But we still believe that interaction is at the heart of this medium. And yeah, it's not cinema in a headset.
[00:38:39.773] Hayoun Kwon: And as a creator, we think we need to keep going our path to create original content because I'm sad to see the virtual reality is more developing only in the game industry. So we will keep going our path.
[00:39:00.066] Kent Bye: Great. Is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say to the broader immersive community? Any final thoughts?
[00:39:08.854] Richard Turco: To the community that is growing, we say, okay, it's a difficult path. It's not that easy. And as I say, we have to shape the future with our ideas and with... the technical evolutions and so on. But it's worth it. I made this turn from my previous career in cinema and I never regretted to went into that because every day is a new day, as difficult as it is to survive as a studio facing the big market, the big companies in front of us sometimes. Yeah, that's worth it because it's a wonder every day when you find an idea or you discover an art piece made by so many talented creators. So, yeah, that's difficult. But I think we have to be strong together with all the community and find a way to make that happen. new way of telling story exist more and more and go towards the audience without sacrificing the quality of what we are doing.
[00:40:23.266] Kent Bye: I just wanted to thank both of you for joining me today to help break down a little bit more of the process of creating the Guardians of Jade Mountain. When I was going through and categorizing the different qualities of presence and the different experiences, I had neglected to remember in the middle of the night when I was doing that, that There was quite a lot of interactions in this piece, both from how are you using the light, the lantern, and to kind of trigger different events and to run into the animals, to be guided towards this whole kind of redirected walking through this whole winding path. It really gave me this deep sense of going on a journey and an adventure. And I feel like there's one kind of tension between like the economic realities of throughput that sometimes would conflict with that sense of deep environmental presence where when I would see something that was not canonical to that environment, but coming from more of the external with other people, it would sort of like take me out of the moment or the story and be a little bit of a distraction. So I understand the need for it. I just was frustrating to feel like I was being taken out of it a little bit. So yeah. But I feel like the overall arc of being able to guide me through a whole path with just like very intuitive animals each step of the way was really quite beautiful and elegant as a way to also be hearing elements of the story be dictated by the audio narration that's giving more context and having little videos and other snippets and shadow puppet dances to get more context so yeah i think it's playing with the form of vr to find new ways of telling stories and so lots of experimental innovations with interaction that are happening here that got some stickiness that i'm looking forward to seeing more folks play with the lessons that you're proving out here with this very innovative piece in many ways so yeah thanks again for joining me here for the podcast to help break it all down
[00:42:19.607] Richard Turco: Thanks a lot for your attention and for your interest on, let's say, all the XR work. And we also need creators, but we also need people like you spreading the word of what can be XR for the audience. So thanks a lot for this moment.
[00:42:43.953] Hayoun Kwon: Thank you for your attention and thank you for our team, all our members to make this happen. So thank you so much.
[00:42:56.699] Kent Bye: Thanks again for listening to these episodes from Venice Immersive 2024. And yeah, I am a crowdfunded independent journalist. And so if you enjoy this coverage and find it valuable, then please do consider joining my Patreon at patreon.com slash voices of VR. Thanks for listening.
