The artist Zenka has been documenting the evolution of virtual reality by making raku sculptures of head-mounted displays. She’s also created an interactive timeline of some of the major VR and AR HMDs. Technology has been progressing so quickly that looking back at cell phones from 10-20 years ago starts to feel like ancient history. Zenka feels the same way about VR and AR headsets as we start to see more patents like Sony’s smart eye contacts or Google’s cyborg eye implants.
I had a chance to catch up with Zenka at the Rothenberg Founder Field Day in May where we talked about her VR HMD art project, her other augmented reality art projects, some of her thoughts about identity and revisiting nostalgic memories in VR, and some of her other anthropological observations about this moment in history.
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Here’s a video of some of Zenka’s recent AR installations at the Rothenberg River headquarters:
Here’s a picture from the 2014 IEEE VR conference of a collection of head-mounted displays curated by NASA’s Stephen Ellis.
#IEEEVR S. Ellis: the first HMD was invented by Galileo ! pic.twitter.com/eAO1tk6y5v
— Sebastien 'Cb' Kuntz (@SebKuntz) March 31, 2014
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Music: Fatality & Summer Trip
Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.452] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. My name is Kent Bye, and welcome to The Voices of VR Podcast. So when I was at the Rothenburg Founder Field Day, I was walking around the Expo Hall and came across Zinka, who's an augmented reality artist, as well as this historian of virtual reality head-mounted displays. she was actually taking these VR HMDs and building these Roku sculptures and kind of showing the evolution of both the HTC Vive, the Meta 2 glasses, as well as a lot of the much older virtual reality headsets. And so Zink is an artist who's really looking at this evolution of augmented and virtual reality technologies, kind of from an anthropological point of view, but also someone who's an artist and a creative trying to use these new technologies to be able to push the boundaries of what's possible. And so I had a chance to talk to Zinka about her process of documenting history in this way, as well as how she sees VR as an expression of our identity, as well as a way to tap into some of our nostalgic memories. So that's what we'll be covering on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. But first, a quick word from our sponsor. This is a paid sponsored ad by the Intel Core i7 processor. If you're going to be playing the best VR experiences, then you're going to need a high-end PC. So Intel asked me to talk about my process for why I decided to go with the Intel Core i7 processor. I figured that the computational resources needed for VR are only going to get bigger. I researched online, compared CPU benchmark scores, and read reviews over at Amazon and Newegg. What I found is that the i7 is the best of what's out there today. So future proof your VR PC and go with the Intel Core i7 processor. So this interview with Zynka happened at the Rothenburg Founder Field Day that was happening at AT&T Park in San Francisco on May 16th, 2016. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:02:08.055] Zenka: My name is Senka. My tagline is Art for the Galactic Age. So I'm an artist. I work in technology. I use augmented reality and my woodcut prints. And I'm also a sculptor. I work in Raku, which is this ancient Japanese technique. But I sculpt things from the future. So it's this weird, cluster of something that looks like it's been dug out of an architectural dig, but it's really something in the future. It's done a big series on virtual reality and augmented reality headsets, tracking the history of the last 60 years of the development.
[00:02:41.946] Kent Bye: And so how did this project come about for you? How did you get into all this cutting edge immersive technologies?
[00:02:47.603] Zenka: Well, I have a friend named Fora. He's like this single guy. I walked into his apartment one day. It's like walking into the future. You know, he has like a robot, a 3D TV, you know, all this stuff that doesn't really work yet that's like way too expensive. And I remember him telling me about the Oculus fundraiser campaign, and that's when I started to get interested in it. And I started sculpting these heads of people wearing Oculuses, and I had all the different versions, the dev versions, and then that spilled into me researching the actual history back 60 years, and being interested in what everybody was creating. I remember I would search Google to see these headsets, you know, the Synetics ones, the early ones. And every month I would search more, there'd be more showing up and more showing up. It got to a point where, like, you know, I'd be getting my car fixed and I'd look at the paper and I'm like, oh my god, there's another one, and I'd run to the studio to sculpt it. So I've become this obsessive collector. and I really want to continue this series all the way into the future. I'm focusing on two companies right now, Meta and HTC Vive, where I'm actually sculpting 10 of their entire, through their development course, to show us how much work goes in, how much we've had to, like Meta had to scrap their idea, throw it out the window, and now they've got this thing that everybody loves and is working. But it's a very difficult process, It's a really creative process and it's interesting to see in very short of time we've got computer motherboards hanging off to something that's really beautiful and slick and great.
[00:04:24.787] Kent Bye: Yeah, I see a lot of different pictures of people holding up to their ears these giant cell phones from, you know, the 80s. And we kind of look at it and laugh. And I just imagine in the future people are going to look at us wearing these different headsets and just be like, that's ridiculous. Why would anybody want to do that? Because at some point, I think they're just going to be glasses that are see-through and go into AR, VR. Everything is just going to be seamless. But right now, we have these really ridiculous looking things that people are putting on their faces. And it sounds like you're documenting that history. STILL AHEAD TONIGHT...
[00:04:55.582] Zenka: Yeah, you know, I actually have sculpted those huge phones, and they're so funny to look at, these massive cell phones. I remember I was living in Chicago, and I never had a TV. You know, I have too much of my life to watch TV, and this was many years ago. This neighbor, like, lifted up three stories, you know, this gigantic TV. It was like one of those furniture TVs that has, like, you know, the wood and everything. And I was like, oh man, I don't even want this, you know, because it was, but it was this old version. So yeah. Also, you know, I just read yesterday that Google is not only patenting, you know, the contact lenses. Well, Sony patented the contact lens. They won the patent for the AR contact lens. Well, I don't even know if it's AR, but it can record everything. You blink your eyes a certain way, it records what you're seeing. And Google takes it a step further, and they're patenting implants into your head. Okay, so that's happening. So you're totally right. Computers are going to turn into this thing that's much more physical. You're going to be able to talk to them. You're going to be able to gesture to your computer. I remember when we used to have to sit at our desktop to work at a computer. And now it's something that I have in my pocket. And so we've reached a day where our grandparents will be able to use a computer in a very intuitive way. And so, yeah, information is going to be everywhere. And we're definitely going to turn into cyborgs little by little, whether we like it or not.
[00:06:21.443] Kent Bye: And so you've gone back and looked at these pictures and started to reconstruct these 3D models of all these different headsets. And so what have you learned personally about the history of VR by actually getting your hands into it and actually making these headsets from the past?
[00:06:36.869] Zenka: Well, I started trying to organize all the headsets, and I made a timeline using a timeline software, so a visual timeline, and I started adding them. And then there was a 3D view button. And so, all of a sudden, all the pictures were transparent on my timeline. So you couldn't distinguish one picture from the other. So I wrote the guy, and I was like, your software is broken, you know, it's not working. He's like, well, your data broke my software. And I was like, wow, you know, this is Kurzweil's law of accelerating returns in practice. So in other words, you know, 60s, 70s happened, 80s, nothing, nothing, you know. And then all of a sudden, so many people were making headsets. The timeline couldn't handle that many pictures in such short of a time, you know what I mean? So it's like, I've been doing augmented reality street art since like 2012, 2013. But starting in 2014, it's like every single company No matter what kind of hardware we make, we're rushing in to do this kind of stuff. And that's what is so exciting about the time that we're living in today, is because my mom calls it the pile-on effect. So you think of something really cool and you prove that it works, and then all of a sudden everybody else can take the knowledge that you had and build upon it and make it better. So our knowledge is compounding upon itself. And yeah, this idea of laws accelerating returns, like what was possible the last five years is nothing compared to what's possible in the next five years. Because computers are getting faster and we're getting smarter. So I'm really excited about what's to come. I mean, everybody's like right now we're kind of we realized that the first commercial models are coming out. Okay, so everybody's really excited about, well, how will everyday people react? We've known this technology for a while. So, it's a little bit of a waiting period. The content's still not there or whatever, but you look in two years from now, it's going to be really fun and I think we're going to get more and more creative. What's great about this technology is too, is that in augmented reality, it's kind of like the low-hanging fruit. I, as an artist who don't even program, can get in there and make art with it. So, I've experimented with a lot of the different platforms, Augment and Rasma, HP's Rasma, I mean, alright, you don't need to know how to program. The hardest part is always the good idea, you know what I mean? Like, you can get on YouTube and take Unity and Vuforia, their plug-in, and pretty much do an app, you know what I mean? Even if you're not a programmer. So, I think that's another exciting thing about the time that we're living in now, is that It's not these big movie studios or big content creators, whether it's like a TV station or not. It's everyday people making stuff, communicating our ideas. And that's going to be really life-changing, world-changing, I think.
[00:09:30.615] Kent Bye: And so you're kind of identifying this moment of time as something that's worth documenting in this way of these sculptures and making these physical artifacts of this VR history. And so what do you hope that people get out of this work?
[00:09:44.560] Zenka: Well, I think it's kind of fun. Like you said, you know, it's like looking at that old phone and like laughing about it. So I think the ones that are really fun to carve are the historical ones because they're so bulky and you're like, that's hysterical. You know what I mean? Like this guy's carrying these things like so big. I mean, There's one, the Sulon Cortex, they're out of Canada, and it has this huge ball in the back. It's actually tethered, you know, you're untethered when you're wearing it, but I mean, it's like massive, and they're just beautiful, they're like works of art. So, I don't know, I mean, I think it's a really fun way to have this conversation about virtual reality and augmented reality, which is gonna be something that changed all of our lives, and so it's fun to know where it came from, and how many people are working on it to make it evolve.
[00:10:30.488] Kent Bye: And so if you were to describe your augmented reality art to someone in the VR community, someone who kind of understands a lot of the technology, what would you tell them about what you're doing in terms of combining your art with augmented reality?
[00:10:42.175] Zenka: Well, so I work doing woodcut prints as part of my work, aside from my sculptures. And so it's a black and white print that really triggers well in augmented reality, whether you're using your cell phone, or whether using a merged headset, or whether using a tablet. You can point it at that woodcut, and then all of a sudden, a 3D object is going to appear. And a lot of the times, my prints have people in that that are already sort of reacting like, wow, like they're in a moment of awe. And then when you put the phone on, you see, for example, a flying dragon that's breathing and there's sound. So I love working in AR because you see adults experiencing magic for the first time. It's like, how often has an adult dropped their jaw in front of you? I mean, you kind of see a five, six-year-old do that, but adults actually drop their jaw when they see augmented reality for the first time. And so that's sort of what my artwork does, and it's very fulfilling and fun because I get to see that happen. So we're working now on a new project, myself and some friends who are developers, and we're going to try to incorporate sound into the augmented reality. So it'll position it with what you're looking at, but it will also react to the sounds that you make, so that'll change your experience. I also wrote a book, well I call it The Toilet Reader, it's 75 App Ideas for VR and AR. And some of the fun things that we're going to encounter, like in AR for example, and I'm going to try to implement this probably next year, I got a grant to implement in a park, so I'm going to get kids to design animals that are mixed, two animals mixed together, which we're already starting to do genetically, or fantasy animals that don't exist, or extinct animals, put them into a park and then allow people to walk around the park with their phone and see the animals interacting in their real environment. So one of the things I love about augmented reality that's different than VR is this a chance to get out of the house, to walk around with friends, to have a shared experience, and to be able to put things into the life that weren't there before, for example, extinct animals or dragons.
[00:12:51.814] Kent Bye: So as an artist who's mixing these traditional mediums, woodcuts, with the cutting-edge augmented reality, what is your strategy in terms of sustaining your work, in terms of being able to do your own personal projects, but also do different contract jobs?
[00:13:06.757] Zenka: Well, that's an interesting question because as an artist you kind of have to work toward, I have a solo show once a year and you kind of do that in the dark and it's not really funded. I did get an artist in residency where they give you a grant and you create projects that you work on. And then I also was lucky to have some different companies get interested in my work. For example, Rothenberg Ventures and River, they read an article about me in Road to VR and contacted me and said, we want to get stuff for our office, but we want people to be able to walk in the door to our high-tech office, put on a Merge headset or a Samsung gear, and have the light office come to life. And I was like, okay, let's do it. So we took some murals that already exist in their space, put augmented reality on top of it you know there's like a beach scene you know and all of a sudden you see people parachuting in or whatever like there's a scene of a mountain and this guy is like dropped down and it looks like he's window cleaning this massive mountain you know and you can put in particle effects like there's fog like rolling off of the hills so when I actually put artwork on top of artwork so yeah in that sense it was really great because there's a company they bought some of my artwork and then funded me to experiment so That's what artists really need at this point and I think it's mutually beneficial because a lot of companies that are developing VR and AR are starting to fund artists because we're sort of got these wacky creative brains that we're like used to experimenting. I experiment every day all day long because that's what you have to do as an artist to like break ground and do new things and so we're very comfortable doing that and so I think that People are enjoying seeing how artists are using VR and AR, and I think that's been some of my favorite experiences in VR, where you're kind of in a world that doesn't exist, and you're like, wow, I'm playing with lights, or I'm doing things like that, so yeah.
[00:14:55.258] Kent Bye: What processes do you use to get into your creative muse of inspiration?
[00:15:00.939] Zenka: Well, I go into the studio and sometimes I put on music or I listen to your show, which has been so amazing. It's been this full-on course of all the crevices, the nooks and crannies of what people are doing with this. And that's also inspiring me, to me, is to hearing all these people's journeys of how they're struggling, how they're winning, and how, you know, how they're telling these stories. Because we learn from each other, you know, and so we need these communication sources, whether it's a convention or whether it's a podcast, you know, to kind of not repeat the same mistakes. That's one thing important in VR and AR developments, to make a ton of mistakes, because that's where you kind of go, oh, that's not working, and that's where you find the things that do work.
[00:15:47.829] Kent Bye: Do you have a favorite memory of being in augmented reality or virtual reality?
[00:15:53.222] Zenka: You know, I have this weird, I have a lot of favorites. One of them was just me, it was just a normal, lame 360 video of a beach. It wasn't even a sunset. And I was like, oh wow. And I looked down and I saw the little leaf rustling there and my shoulders went down. I was like, oh my gosh, I just need a cup of coffee. I just need to do this in the morning for two seconds. Or if I could film places like where I grew up or something, that would be nice to just have that. There was another one where it was like the middle of a street in Hong Kong and I let people do that. You know, there was another one like in New York City on the subway. I let people do that in my last show last year, you know, just to see what VR was like. This woman started crying. She's like, oh my gosh, I'm from Hong Kong and this is the street that, you know, I used to pass every day. And it was like, I was like, and she's like, I haven't been back in years, you know, and she was like crying, you know, it was like, Really cool. So I think some of the more hyper real experiences are good. And then I also think the really out there, like I said, the stuff that you could never experience, you know, like the Bjork video is like, I felt uncomfortable. I'm like, I'm like, oh my God, I just feel like I just talked to Bjork, you know, like it was just like too close. I'd never been with a star in an intimate setting. Here I am like acting as if I actually met her, like, but like, you know what I mean? So yeah, and some of the things leap motion is doing some of their developers do these very like esoteric things, which is beautiful Is there any experience that you want to have in augmented or virtual reality? Well, there's tons of things I want to do in augmented reality. Like I said, just going out to the desert and having a cocktail in hot, hot sun, putting on some headsets, and walking around with my friends seeing mirages that artists have created. or going through a maze that changes every day into like a scary maze or like another maze you get to the dead end and you see like turtle like fountains or something you know what I mean like I've been wanting to do the walk you know like I think that's kind of like one of the cool experiences where you know you probably would never do that in real life well you definitely wouldn't do that in real life right and then I mean just like what everybody says I have to agree like being able to transport yourself into another place. My husband's from Argentina, and I spent 10 years there, so being able to be somewhere else with someone would be great. Having dinner with someone, you're kind of cut out, and you can decide that we're in Paris, I can decide that we're in Argentina, or we can both be somewhere else. I like this idea of I can see something and you can see something, and it's different. They even say, sexuality in the future like if you want me to be something and I want you to be something out like it's just weird how we're gonna be in the same experience but have an individual view of what we want it to be which is just like it's just so cool and bizarre but as everybody's experiencing now the social VR is great because there's nothing more beautiful and complex than humans you know and being with other people laughing and
[00:19:04.996] Kent Bye: And finally, what do you see as kind of the ultimate potential of virtual reality and what it might be able to enable?
[00:19:12.404] Zenka: I think we're going to have to have a new name for reality in a way, because I think people's conception of VR is like, oh, you're going to lock yourself in another world, and you're never coming out. But we are going to have these very social experiences. People do the Toy Box demo, and they walk out, and they've had a bonding experience with someone they met inside the thing, just playing. If you do a crazy scavenger hunt that's really dangerous with someone you don't know or a group of friends and you come out of that, you feel bonded to them. I mean, Stephen Kotner is studying the whole idea of how in VR we can have these heightened states where we're in the flow times a hundred. So I mean, our learning is faster, our adrenaline, because of the chemicals that are happening in our bodies. So I think the future is going to be a way for us to experience things in a heightened way. But I also think it's going to be ubiquitous, like we're going to be using it. It's just going to be how we interact with the world, just like how we're on a phone today. And I think one of the things that we are not considering is how, I mean, I've never been a gamer, but we're gonna have these other avatars in us. Like, we're gonna be seen how we always have wanted to be seen. Or, I mean, like, I try to never judge a book by the cover, you know what I mean? Like, my friends come from all ages, all looks, all types, all everything. And I think that that's gonna be one of the interesting things that we come out of this, is there's gonna be a deeper level of connection that's not based on this like visual thing that we've always carried with us that has kept us from maybe knowing people or having experiences or whatever. So I think it's going to be a place where our imagination is just going to go wild. We're going to tap into our dream world and the world of possibilities. UC is doing studies about how when we go into VR and we do superhuman things, in the real world we're more superhuman because we've learned how that feels. So I think I'm an optimist and I'm not scared of what AR and VR is going to do. They complain about TV, you know what I mean, like in the past and like there's a fire and you can either like burn someone with it or you can cook food. So I fully embrace the technology and I think we're going to be able to walk through books and really experience things in a really awesome way.
[00:21:41.558] Kent Bye: Awesome. Is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say?
[00:21:46.476] Zenka: No, just thank you for being along and documenting this amazing movement. It's just the beginning and it's getting so interesting and we're so grateful to have you do what you do.
[00:21:57.514] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Senka. Thanks. So that was Zenka. She's an augmented reality artist as well as creating sculptures of virtual reality head-mounted displays. So I have a number of different takeaways about this interview is that first of all I think it was really interesting to hear an artist's perspective of these new emerging technologies and from Zenka's perspective she basically experiments and is trying to push the boundaries of what's possible every day within her creative life. And so there's an interview that I did with Pete Moss the first time that I talked to him back in November of 2015 in episode 257. And he said something that really stuck with me, which is that he was really looking forward to see what artists were going to be able to create with this VR technology. because artists really think about how to impact neural pathways into the brain day to day all the time in their lives. And so I find that to be really true that some of the really interesting conversations that I've had have been from people that are coming from more of an artistic and creative perspective rather than just a pure technology or interactive perspective. And so one of the really interesting moments that I had from this interview is when Zinka was talking about kind of documenting the timeline of the history of VR and just the fact that she was trying to make a timeline plot of all the different VR HMD headsets and that there have been so many within the last two or three years that it actually literally broke the timeline software that there was just so many new entries that the software couldn't really handle it, which I think is pretty apt of really describing the explosion that's happening within VR over the last couple of years. And I also really think that it's neat to be documenting these VR headsets in this way, building these actual sculptures, because there is going to be time when we look back on this and just kind of see how ridiculous the VR headsets look on people's faces. I mean, If you go back and look at any of the early days of the cell phone technology and look how big the phones are as people are holding them up to their heads, then I think people in the future are going to look back to this time in the early days of consumer VR and kind of have the same thing. I think that eventually that VR headsets are going to perhaps have a way where we're not actually occluding our face. Actually, I think that's kind of an open question at this point because I think right now some of the pass-through cameras that I've seen with augmented reality It's kind of light additive, so you're only able to add light to the environment. And so there is something that you're able to really transport people into this other realm when you're able to completely block out everything that you're seeing. But I think in the future, we may have some way to kind of go in between these pass-through augmented reality type glasses where you're able to see reality versus something that's able to completely block out everything that you're seeing. So Zinka mentioned some of this futuristic contact technology and just doing some quick Google searches that there are some patents out there from both Sony and Samsung having to do with this eye contact lenses and cameras. And as well as from April 28, 2016, this Discover magazine was saying that Google patent this cyborg eye implant where Discovery Magazine says that it envisions a laser drilling a hole in the lens of the capsule that protects the human eye's natural lens, and that ultrasonic vibrations would help shatter the eye's natural lens so that fragments could be suctioned out of the hole. Oh my god, what's happening? What is this? So this would clear the way for the injection of the electronic lens device and fluid capable of solidifying into a silicon hydrogel. which creates this electronic lens that can adjust its shape to provide the appropriate focus for normal eyesight, or correct from problems such as nearsighted vision without extra contact lenses or glasses. So, sounds like they're drilling holes in your eyeballs in order to create this cyborg eye that doesn't need glasses, but that could potentially improve your vision. And also, the implant would be able to wirelessly send data to a smartphone, tablet, or laptop, or have an internet connection. It's unclear as to whether or not that this would actually be able to then directly send photons into your eyeballs, so essentially kind of having a direct implant into your eyes. All this stuff really freaks me out and I don't think I want to be drilling holes into my eyes whether or not they're lasers or not. I just tend to be a little bit more skeptical about the more transhumanist vision of the future. But the fact that some of this is already coming out and being patented I think is a sign of things to come in the next 9, 10 to 20 years out. So things are moving so quickly that if you google around for some of the contact lenses from Sony and Samsung, it's moving more and more closely to getting directly up into the eye. So the world is changing so quickly, which I think if you think about where this may be going with these eye contact lenses and doing these types of more extreme cyborg type of implants, then, you know, looking back and seeing some of these virtual reality head mount displays are going to feel pretty antiquated in many different ways. So just a couple other points I wanted to point out about this interview is that there's a couple of times when Zinka was talking about some of the VR applications where she started to really talk about identity and your representation of identity and what if you were being traveling into a scene and your lover is seeing you but you're seeing something else with your lover but you're able to kind of have your own individual and different experiences based upon being in completely different worlds but yet being together and being able to still share each other's body movements and voice but yet the visual representations of each other could be wildly different than what you see for yourself and what the other person sees in you. And so she was kind of wondering what kind of implications that have for your sexuality. And the other thing that I just wanted to point out was that there's a thing that she mentioned in terms of going back and having this nostalgic memories of different things that you've experienced. So She told the story of a woman who was in a VR experience in Hong Kong and had a really viscerally emotional experience of being able to go back to a place that really meant a lot to her growing up. And so I think that with humans, I think there is a component of our memory that is based upon geography and our spatial awareness. when we actually go back to some of these places, whether it's actually going there or having a virtual recreation of them, whether it's a fully immersive 360 video or a photogrammetry shot, or even if it's just a photosphere from Google Maps and be able to go through some of the Google Maps explorations of some of these Google Street View photospheres within VR. All of these are kind of invoking this location and nostalgic sentimentality that I think that VR starts to bring out as well. When we're able to go back to some places where we grew up, I think it does evoke a visceral emotional reaction. So I'd encourage people to try this out and go download the Street View VR within the Gear VR and then you know, tell it some of the places where you grew up, some of the streets or some of the places that you remember from a different time in your life, and just to go back to some of these places and to revisit them within VR. And it's something that I've shown other people in VR and experienced myself, and it's something that's quite unique that I think that VR is able to do, and especially if people don't have the means to be able to go to different places around the world. So that's all that I have for today. I'd want to just thank you for listening. 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