BabyBonito is an artist, avatar creator and worldbuilder within VRChat who participant different VRChat communities including a creative collective in VR called GlitchesVR, which has a substack that covers the latest in virtual culture. As a classically trained artist Bonito first got into VR through the process of creating her own avatars, which have a distinctive look having a wiggly fish on her head. She also started to shoot documentaries within VR, and actually got an honorable mention from Raindance Immersive 2023 for her short film called The Painters of Virtual Reality, which documents the still life drawing community on VRChat. I wanted to catch up with Bonito as I saw her at a lot of events throughout Raindance Immersive, and I wanted to hear more about her journey into VR, some of the groups and communities she’s involved with on VRChat, her thoughts on how the creator economy may change the creative dynamics on the platform, and some of the other pockets of indie artists and creatives who are actively co-creating different aspects of virtual culture.
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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 future of spatial computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. So in today's episode, I'm going to be talking to Baby Benito, or also just known as Benito, who is an artist and creator within VRChat, participates in a number of different VRChat communities, and is a part of a creative collective called GlitchesVR. She also directed a documentary called The Painters of Virtual Reality, shot within VRChat and received an honorable mention for a short film last year at Rain Dance Immersive 2023. So I wanted to catch up with Benito just because I was running into her a lot at Rain Dance Immersive and I had a chance to see her documentary last year and she's just keeping track and participating in a lot of these different creative artistic communities within the context of VRChat. With the groups within VRChat, there's new capabilities of connecting to all sorts of collectives of people who are making and creating art together, but also exploring and world hopping and holding different community events within the context of VRChat. So I wanted to just touch in with her just to hear about some of the communities she's a part of and some of the collaborative, creative, artistic expression that's happening on the platform of VRChat. So that's what we're coming on today's episode of Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Benito happened on Wednesday, June 19th, 2024. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:01:29.280] BabyBonito: Hello, my name is baby Benito, but I prefer everyone just call me Benito. I'm a creator in VRChat, mostly. I also do a lot of community stuff and write, and I'm part of a creative collective, which is very vague and probably will remain vague in VR called Glitches VR.
[00:01:48.532] Kent Bye: Great. Maybe you could give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into VR.
[00:01:53.786] BabyBonito: Yeah, so I'm an artist by trade. I studied illustration and computer animation. And then I worked in the animation industry for a while. But I was really interested in VR for a while because I was seeing people in avatars. And I was like, oh, you can make 3D stuff and then go inside it? That's so cool. And then I studied my master's. And I decided to focus on avatars and embodiment and stylization. And then from there, that was during the pandemic. So that was in 2020. And then from there, I just stayed and got deeper and deeper into it.
[00:02:29.877] Kent Bye: Okay. And so, yeah, maybe you could give a little bit more details as to like how VRChat came across your screen and then getting into that community and really immersing yourself into this virtual worlds with the ability to express yourself with your own identity.
[00:02:43.527] BabyBonito: Yeah, I watched a Seymour video. He did this series that was, I think, actually based off of the People of New York series from before, where it was like a picture of someone and then a bit about their life. And they were usually really surprising. So it's like a YouTube series like that, but set in VRChat. And I remember seeing him interview this kid who was wearing a Kermit the Frog avatar. And I remember thinking it was so bananas, like they were having this really deep, earnest conversation about this kid's life.
[00:03:13.630] Kent Bye: they were like in kermit the frog avatars and one of them was winnie the pooh and that absurdity mixed with the sincerity just like drew me in so quickly yeah yeah yeah so i very familiar with sir moore and some really intimate one-on-one conversations that does really take these deep dives into people's intimate lives and so as you start to get into vr chat at what point do you start to actually make your own avatars
[00:03:42.315] BabyBonito: It did take a while, but that was always the goal. So I started studying avatars first, and then I was like, OK, VRChat seems like the best platform for me to actually make them since there's so many tutorials and stuff. So that's how I ended up choosing VRChat specifically. And just like the freedom and all the different styles that existed. So once I started getting in, I played a bit, had some really weird experiences, and then met people. And then I immediately started making my own avatars. Yeah.
[00:04:13.015] Kent Bye: Well, your avatar is very distinct because it's kind of a comic girl with a fish. I guess a Benito is a type of tuna. Yeah. I saw that you went to ComicVCat3 and that you had a whole comic book about the origins of your avatar. It seems like there's a lot of lore and then also that you've created a whole animated version of that same origins video. Yeah. Maybe you could just give a bit more context as to like, is this a story that you had come up with first or, you know, just kind of walk me through this process of creating this look and feel of baby Benito or AKA Benito identity.
[00:04:50.211] BabyBonito: Yeah, because it is such a strong identity at this point. It's really funny it happened. I chose the name Baby Benito because I was just trying to come up with a name that wasn't taken. And I was thinking Benito like the fish flakes. And a lot of people thought I meant Benito like the Spanish Portuguese beautiful. So I would get kind of like hit on immediately. And I was like, oh, no, people think I meant this. They don't realize it's fish. So then that's what I kind of put the fish in my head to be like, it's the fish, guys. Like, get it. And then I was in a group where, like, there were a ton of world builders there. And I was like, oh, maybe I should make a world. And then I was like, oh, make a home world. That's like, what would Benito's home be? And then... It was sort of this iterative process that I feel like would only come about in social VR because it was like people would look at me and then be like, you look like this. And then I'd be like, oh, OK. And then I'd make a world based on this kind of collective idea of who Benito is. And then based on that world, people kept just coming up with different theories. Because in the world, there's these fish tanks that hold my avatars. So there's avatars and tanks. and then a tree, and it's really small, and it doesn't look natural. It looks unnatural, and there's all these fish and eggs around. It's a little creepy. So people kept coming up with different theories, and I was like, oh, I should make a comic about this. So then I kind of went back into my medium that I was in before VR, and then it looped back in with the people I met in VRChat helping me make the music for it and voicing it.
[00:06:30.851] Kent Bye: and like inspiring the whole story so it was really cool yeah i had a chance to jump into each of your worlds there's the benito hatchling world 1.0 and 2.0 where you you have these different avatars you can jump into you have this little area where you can use some of the drawing tools you had mentioned that you were studying and researching like avatars and embodiment was that mostly from your own explorations of what it felt like for yourself of creating your identity? Or did you do a lot of like field research of talking to other people about their representation and avatars and embodiment? Maybe just walk through a little bit more about that deep dive into avatars and embodiment that you did.
[00:07:09.437] BabyBonito: Yeah, it was kind of like because my master's was in 3D animation and it was sort of like me proposing that there is a way we could design avatars that might help with navigating social situations or using them like more intentionally and bringing in more stylized avatars and kind of bringing in like theories of character design from animation and comics. about how we represent characters stylistically, what that can mean. So I was proposing all these things and then doing the research of what would this look like in practice. So I was sort of pitching my avatar design as a way to be pro-social and then just observing how people respond to me. I was not conclusive at all. I would need to do a lot more research around it. But I think I like proved my theory right in some ways and wrong in other ways. But yeah, lots of surprises.
[00:08:05.182] Kent Bye: When you say the way that people respond to you, you actually have a very distinct avatar representation that a lot of people are into the anime aesthetic. I mean, there are anime elements, but it's just, you know, you've got like this giant fish that's wobbling around in your head. And so you get a lot of reactions from people about that.
[00:08:23.829] BabyBonito: Yeah, this is so sad, but it's been a while since I've actually just like gone into Publix, but it's pretty, they're pretty ruthless. Like the last time I was in there, it's like, because the avatar that I have isn't like easily digestible stylistically, which is why I think, I was so interested in it in social VR and VR chat specifically because there's just so many styles. But it feels like, you know, it's not like really sexy enough or like cool enough or like human enough. It's a little uncanny maybe in like a different ways. But the people who like it usually have the similar references where it's like, oh, you look like Animal Crossing or you look like... This cartoon that I watched or something, I see the references, but for people who are just socializing, it's almost an abnormal body in the space, which I love.
[00:09:19.167] Kent Bye: Okay, well, I had a chance to meet you last year at Raindance when you had a whole documentary that was playing there at Raindance that was investigating this culture within VRChat of people that were drawing and painting within VR. And when I went back and looked at some of your videos, it seemed like that you started to kind of experiment with taking these world hops and asking your friends what they liked about the world. And so kind of doing this like documentary style of helping to document the culture in some ways and the document the worlds that were happening. And so maybe you could just elaborate a little bit more about your journey of starting to document different pockets of cultures that are within VRChat.
[00:10:01.727] BabyBonito: Yeah, I'm part of a group that adventures all the time. I don't do it as often as I wish I could, but I've just seen so many worlds and spent so much time with people in the space that it's like, after a while, it's like, people got to know. People got to see what I see, you know? There's so many different nuances that are so hard to describe. In my friend's Favorite Worlds video, that was sort of like a test run. And it was mostly the people in Glitch's VR, because we really work well together. And yeah, we adventure and explore really well together. So we kind of wanted to do something where it's like we could sort of share that experience and what it could be like to kind of be able to just have time and go around and see what other people are doing and in that video you know one of our friends is like this tiny little robot i just think it's so funny because then you have like this gorgeous like human-sized woman with this tiny little robot and they're having like a just a normal conversation. I love that kind of thing. So we try to do that more. It's really hard with everybody's schedules and life picking up after the pandemic. But yeah, we definitely want to keep sharing all of the things that we experience, the good and the bad. Because at the end of the day, there's just so many people interfacing with each other in a novel way that there's so much to talk about. I mean, you know that.
[00:11:28.737] Kent Bye: Yeah, for sure. There's so many different dimensions of what's happening in virtual culture. And this is a VR podcast. I've published nearly 1400 episodes and recorded over 2000. And, you know, even just diving into VR chat as a whole world within itself. And so. So true. So I feel like I'm just kind of scratching at the surface here, but you've been involved in immersing yourself into the culture and going in different groups and going to different events and world hopping and this glitches VR. It seems like it's a little bit more relatively new formalization of this friend group that you have. That's a creative collective. And I, Notice that a lot of the people that are a part of this collective were featured in one of the first videos that you had posted to YouTube, but there's also a sub stack where you're doing a little bit more writing it. It feels like there's a little bit of like you're documenting the culture in some ways, like doing interviews and also creating different art projects. And so maybe you could just go into a little bit more of the origin story of this creative collective.
[00:12:24.266] BabyBonito: Yeah, I think we all have different reasons because there's nine of us. So I think we all have different reasons for why we wanted to be a part of it. But for me, a huge thing that happened was we had spent so much time together during lockdown where we didn't have to plan anything. And we would just be working on projects all the time or going world hopping and meeting new people all the time. But without us realizing it, everyone just got so busy. We're a very diverse group in many different ways. Not everybody can afford a new headset when their headset breaks, or get a new cable, or their internet's spotty, or they have to work a ton during the day or during the evening. we started getting into this position where we were like, okay, we still love working together and like being together, but how do we keep doing that? So I think by formalizing it and sort of having this like structure around us kind of helps us like keep trying to pursue something. And what that thing is, I don't think we all agree on it. We have to talk about it a lot, but we can like kind of plan those conversations and like yeah, work together on, on figuring it out. But I think that was like the biggest reason. Cause like we all want to stay here. Like we want to keep exploring and, and keep sharing our experiences and progressing, but yeah, it's just really hard. So.
[00:13:50.506] Kent Bye: Yeah. You had posted the documentary of my friend's favorite worlds about a year ago or so, and that the glitches VR a sub stack. So it seems like that it did start with, you know, you being connected together as friends. Was there any like catalyzing moment where that brought everybody together or did this friend group already exist? Or maybe just kind of flesh out a little bit of like, you know, when you go into VR chat, obviously there's lots of different events and people somehow find ways to connect to each other, but. Curious to hear your own kind of entry point into this friend group.
[00:14:21.872] BabyBonito: Yeah, we were friends for a really long time, but I think the thing that catalyzed it was so I kind of was like sitting on this name. I was like, Glitches, that's a great name. And I was thinking like, oh, a creative collective would be so nice because I do find it's really hard to work with people sometimes. in VR because everybody kind of has their own project and then you kind of publish it under your own name it's sometimes can be difficult to like organize groups of people together so I was like okay yeah creative collective in VR would be sick but I was just sitting on it and then I can't remember what happened but we bumped into Armani kind of later on Armani XR and he's like a professional like a madhouse of like you know just can get things done like sends the emails sets up the meetings and then we were talking about I think actually two people had mentioned creating like a journal which I wasn't interested in but I was like maybe not a journal but a creative collective and then he really like got it going yeah does that make sense yeah I
[00:15:24.909] Kent Bye: Well, it's a sub stack. So there's publishing that's happening. So there is some writing that is happening, but it sounds like that there's other creative projects that different people that are part of the collective are involved with. I know for you, you've been involved in actually shooting a documentary, The Painters of Virtual Reality that showed at Rain Dance last year that you released back in October of 2023. And so maybe you could walk through the origins of that project where you're starting to document what is happening in both these private and public instances of people who are doing these paintings within virtual reality.
[00:15:58.207] BabyBonito: Yeah, that was such a fun project. The world came about. I know the creator of the world, Tokio. He was building a ton of worlds. I can't remember when it was published. I think it was in 2021 or 2022. But at the time, I was doing IRL life drawing. We have a local place that I go to life drawing, and they're with nude models. And it had been so long since I'd gone. It had been maybe five years since art school, since I had consistent access to life drawing models. So I was like, this is amazing. And I kept sharing my drawings. to The Seagull's Nest, which is Dirty Seagulls, who is in the documentary. That was his art community at the time. He would be on every day drawing. And I was lucky enough to see him every once in a while and join that Discord. But I was sharing my drawings. And then I was like, it'd be really nice if there was a live drawing world. And then another person and their ex-guy agreed. And we were like, it could look like that. It could look like that. They kind of were thinking of the idea. And then Toki made it, which is so cool. He made the world and it was great. And then it got really popular. And then all of a sudden, you know, like tons of people are in there. The lifetime community is getting like really big. And then I think he was just like, let's do an art fair. And then for the art fair, I know that they wanted some video for promo, but I was sort of like, Oh, I just want to like make a little documentary. Cause I had seen Joe's documentary and, Like a couple months before. And then I was like, yeah, I want to make a little art documentary. And then they'll help me organize that. And it was like pretty smooth. And then I just released it for the art fair. I wasn't really thinking about submitting to Rain Dance because I didn't know that they were going to feature films. But yeah, it got in there and more people saw it. So that was fun.
[00:17:40.677] Kent Bye: Yeah, I saw that in the very early videos, maybe your first video that was on YouTube, you were starting to play around with the VRC lens, which is this prefab thing you can attach to your avatar. All these additional complicated ways to make the look and feel of the video look really nice, but it's also not easy to use. It takes some skill of learning how to like make it look right and to control it. And so, yeah, I know talking to Joe hunting and we met in virtual reality, he was using that and produced a really beautiful film following lives of people within VRChat. So, yeah, I feel like that's a way that you were able to capture the essence of a lot of these different people who are going into these painting worlds created by Tokyo, who I was fortunate enough to be a juror with them last year. Oh, yeah. At Rain Dance on the Immersive Worlds and do some world hops with them. But yeah, so this community of people painting and the thing that I found really fascinating about the documentary was this dynamic between people who chose to paint in public instances and deal with trolls.
[00:18:40.475] BabyBonito: Yeah, yeah.
[00:18:41.095] Kent Bye: destroying their paintings versus people who opted to not do that and to paint on their own. Maybe you could elaborate a little bit on that because it felt like people who decided to paint in the public instances, they were almost like inviting the chaos or, I don't know, there was something around... Maybe there's an ephemerality of their art that they're creating that they weren't actually all that attached to. Otherwise, they would definitely not be in those public worlds. But it was also some really beautiful stories of having trolls that had an opportunity to be transformed by having like a creative intervention.
[00:19:16.880] BabyBonito: Yeah, I think it's really interesting, too. Because yeah, I went to art school, so I learned all the legit ways to make art. And I was in illustration, which is very commercially arts-focused. So we were taught that end image is like, that's what you're going for. That's the precious thing at the end that you can basically sell to newspapers. But what I've learned from watching people who, like you said, invite the chaos and they actually seek out public instances is that they're really more focused on the process of the art that they're making, like how it feels to draw and spending that time with other people. having it be like all real time, I think is like where they find the satisfaction and they get a lot of growth out of that. Like the process of drawing is more important. So they love that part and then they keep doing it more. And then, you know, they make friends who like to do that with them. So then they do more and then they end up really growing a lot. And I was, yeah, that story with Flo and the troll who they talked to, I think that probably happens a lot in the public instances in the life drawing world. Because every time I go in there, it's very social, but people are also drawing. So they're kind of stuck together for a really long time. So it's not really like a casual, like people just come there to pop in and out, or they just run around and spread out. It's like everybody's kind of in this intimate space. So I wonder if that helps as well, but it would be good to look more into that.
[00:20:47.265] Kent Bye: It's an interesting intersection there, you know, troll interventions. I have another interview diving a lot more into some of those different, you know, that's called the troll project that is doing interviews. Yeah. With Ruth Diaz, who's doing a lot of those. So we'll be diving in a lot more into some of those different dynamics that she's doing, but I'm sure that'd be so interesting. Yeah. So for you, you've started to do this documentation of these different worlds. I saw that you were also credited as additional cinematography and Madame Kanna's Eden Garden behind the magic, you know, maybe a bit more context of getting the past to be a ghost to float around and bear witness to some of these dances.
[00:21:24.887] BabyBonito: Oh my gosh. It's like such an honor to be credited because I just went to one session and I was filming. I did see some of my shots that I made it in, but like most of it was Kana. Yeah. I was just like, yeah, if you ever need a hand, like let me know. Cause we were chatting after rain dance. I think it was the award ceremony last year because she had been making mini documentaries, like the whole rain dance. Like I feel like every other day it was like, here's my new little mini documentary. I'm like, girl, how do you have time? But I was like, yeah, I know you got something cooking. Like, if you need a hand, let me know. So then I think it was like a month later, she was like, okay, do you want to come and help? And I was like, yes, because I had made it into one of the instances at New Eden. But it is so hard to get in because they only have the one instance with the performances. There's like, I think like 3000 people in the group or something. So I went into one of the rehearsals and she had told me ahead of time, like be invisible, have the camera, stay muted. And we're just going to like go and you can shoot whatever you want. And I was like, okay. So I think it was like a two hour session. And yeah, we were just like flying around like invisible. Everybody acted like we weren't there. It was amazing. I don't know if you can have that kind of filming experience anywhere else. I truly felt like a fly on the wall. I was going right up into the middle of their talk circle and just with my little camera recording everybody.
[00:22:50.203] Kent Bye: Yeah, I was fortunate enough to see one of the performances from Raindance. They were performing opening night last year at Raindance. And so I managed to get a ticket to go see it. But yeah, some amazing performances there. But yeah, I noticed also that you have been attending a lot of different Raindance events and seeing stuff. I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on some of the stuff that you've been able to see so far this year.
[00:23:13.817] BabyBonito: Dude, like every Raindance, I'm like, wow, everyone is so talented. I feel like a grandma, like I go around and be like, you did so well, you're so talented. Because I'm always just so floored by what's going on. And there's always, yeah, there's always like pockets of communities that I'd like, oh, I heard about this one person, but I didn't know that there was these like 10 other people that were helping them do this other stuff that I've never heard about. So that's been really great. And I also sadly don't really connect with the Japanese community as much as I want to because the time differences are so great. So being able to go to some events with like the Yoikami event, the Shiro Four Seasons was really nice. And I feel like there's another one, but I'm blanking.
[00:24:00.865] Kent Bye: There's an inspiration Japanese show that happened.
[00:24:04.287] BabyBonito: Yes. The Rav Drum. I had seen him like maybe a year ago and I was like, I got to go to more. I never saw another performance. So that was also really nice.
[00:24:15.458] Kent Bye: Yeah, and also the Japanese jazz performers. That was also really cool to see live jazz that was being played in the context of one of the performances, Connected Waves VR Jazz Session. So yeah, I just really enjoy all the different communities that are coming together. And the group session is something that has been added to VRChat a little bit more recently where You have the ability to join different groups. I noticed that you are a member of a number of different groups and a number of different communities. I'd love to hear a little bit more about how the groups have changed the dynamics for how you're able to get embedded and immersed into lots of different events and communities within the context of VRChat.
[00:24:55.663] BabyBonito: Yeah, groups was huge. Like sometimes I think about what it was like before and it's like a completely different way. Maybe, you know, there might be some bad things that I'm not thinking about, but I love them. I was like, it's a completely different way to like find people. And there's so many different types of group communities. So like Starheart's group, you can join if you're interested in Starheart, anybody can join. Those kinds of groups are great because yeah, you might find someone that you really want to follow or you like their work. So you can join the group and kind of join up on an instance if they're ever doing anything. So yeah, join StarHard's group. And then the same with Sheena, they have a group, the Jazz Singers in VR. Those are great. And you get little announcements But for our more closed groups, it's been huge because the moderation capabilities are more specific. So if you have a group and something happens with someone, you can just say, OK, if we have a group instance open, this person specifically will not be joining. We don't want them in the group. Or everybody can see who's in the group, who's online and in a group instance at one time, which is really helpful. So yeah, just like organizing, even organizing events within a group has become so much easier because you can post announcements and things instead of just seeing all your friends are on or seeing a friends plus instance and being like, well, maybe I'll know everyone here and it'll be fun. So that's been really good.
[00:26:24.833] Kent Bye: I noticed that there's a couple of filmmakers within VRChat, as well as like a photo club for people who are taking photos within VRChat. I see a lot of photos of people who do world hops on Twitter that, you know, different worlds. Sometimes I'll find a world I like, I'll search to see who's posted about it. And there's people who go around to worlds and take photos of it. But Also, just at these reindeers events, there's people who go around taking photos of the events. And so there's a whole number of people who are just kind of documenting VRChat in different ways and kind of world hopping. And then in some ways, just maybe they're amateur photographers in physical reality. And this is just another way that they're able to translate their interest to take virtual photography. But I feel like that's kind of an interesting phenomenon that happens in VRChat.
[00:27:08.433] BabyBonito: Yeah, it doesn't happen in other platforms. I guess I haven't been in long enough and used the camera tools. But I also wonder if people just enjoy having a roll. a way to like give back because that's what kind of why I take pictures a lot of the time is to capture it for myself but also like it's so nice to see your avatar in another photo or you know if you made an experience or a world to see a beautiful photo of it it's kind of like a little pat on the back a little thank you so I think that's a reason why people do it a lot too yeah I I sort of like end up taking a lot more photos than I ever publish because I feel like there's
[00:27:48.692] Kent Bye: Like there were some times where I would, I guess back when, before Elon took over Twitter and turned it into X, it kind of just fractured the community, created a situation for me in a way that like PK would have these events and I would document it. But what I found is that sometimes when I would like document it so granularly and go back, I would be able to say, okay, this is what he's actually doing with all the different shaders and really comment on it in that way. But yeah. But there really isn't a platform where people are consuming that type of virtual photography that I've continued that. So I've got thousands of different photos I've taken, but I take them in the moment. And then unless I publish it right away, I kind of like create it as a part of my archive of experiences that I haven't. digested in any way so yeah i think the loop between like capturing and then publishing is something that maybe if this group of virtual photographers if they kind of exhibit their photos or have a context under which they can actually show the photos but yeah there's a lot of people that make especially japanese creators i feel like there's so many ginormous like huge
[00:28:56.013] BabyBonito: photo gallery worlds. Like, I don't know if you've seen them, but there's a lot of them that are like spiral staircase shaped and they just, it's like row upon row of virtual photography that just like ascends into the heavens. It's kind of amazing, but yeah, it's going back into the platform and sometimes people see it, but it's not like it's getting a bigger audience. Sometimes I feel like it's getting a smaller audience. So it's interesting.
[00:29:20.819] Kent Bye: Yeah, and I noticed you've published a number of different worlds and they're kind of like very small, short, brief experiences that kind of like have like a thought or an idea that it seems like you're kind of sketching out rough concepts of an experience like Room of Ghosts where you just kind of have like a room. It feels like it's a vibe. It's a way of using virtual world creation to create a feeling, but also the surrealism of a giant baby, devil baby person holding something down on the ground.
[00:29:50.722] BabyBonito: It's a Kewpie.
[00:29:52.624] Kent Bye: It's a Kewpie, Kent. A Kewpie. Oh, a Kewpie. Okay. Sorry. Apologies. I'm not familiar. What's a Kewpie?
[00:30:00.291] BabyBonito: It's like this little baby doll that was created by a German cartoonist, like in the, I think it's the early 1900s, but then the licensing got sold to a Japanese mayonnaise company. So you can buy Kewpie mayo and it has this like cute little, well, I think it's cute, but a lot of people don't think it's cute, but it's like this little baby on mayo. Um, yeah. Yeah. It's kind of a cult thing, I guess.
[00:30:23.866] Kent Bye: There's kind of an uncanniness because you can climb to the top of the baby's head and then jump down to the bottom and have lots of other cutie babies walking around, making noises. So yeah. And then there's the little bird forest, which is another kind of ambient space that felt like a place to go do some painting and drawing. But let me hear a little bit more about your process of creating these little small scale worlds that feel very indie experimental, like vibe creation style.
[00:30:51.502] BabyBonito: Yeah, I think they're just an extension of me being an illustrator first. They are pretty much sketches or little concepts. And I find world building just so intimidating that I can only do something small. That's why I've been really enjoying Quill and trying to import Quill stuff into VRChat, because I feel like the sketchiness and the quickness of it, it's more simple for me. So I can do a lot more drawing and just import it. Yeah, they're all just trying to be just as illustrative as I would be with paint and pencils, but with 3D space. Because my work is very specific and technical, and I have a defined role. So it's nice being able to actually build worlds and sketch things. But yeah, it's hard.
[00:31:40.606] Kent Bye: Well, I know that Peg Guillory, also known as Ameth of VR, who's done the Metaculture magazine, doing some writings, she was also looking at this phenomena of people going into VR chat and painting either the things that are happening in the virtual world. Sometimes they would be painting in VR, sometimes they'd be painting in physical reality. And so I'm not sure if that's something also you've started to dive into at all, this kind of like sketching and painting of different things that you obviously did a whole documentary about it, but let me hear about... Some of your explorations of this phenomena of either being in a virtual space and documenting what is happening in that by making a physical painting or being in the virtual space and making a virtual painting.
[00:32:19.713] BabyBonito: Yeah, I've talked with them quite a bit about this. They've coined the term Grittism, which I think is a bit different from what I'm doing, but I'm almost there, where it's like you're kind of looping back out to the world your experiences in virtual worlds. So they do a lot of physical painting with physical paints while in VR and kind of painting the virtual world on physical media. And then that's kind of like looping things back in. So far, I've just been painting my experiences from social VR using like digital or pencil or whatever. But then also I use Vermillion VR, which is a painting app which you can overlay over VRChat, which is so cool. So we started doing like a Vermillion painting night in the VR life drawing community. where we do VRChat world hops, but we're also painting using the Vermilion overlay. So we can all paint the same kind of world and then we look at them after. But it has a very like oil painting feel. So it's kind of like this more traditional sort of feeling of like doing plein air painting sessions, but like in virtual worlds. And I think that's so interesting. But I have plans to try Ameth's sort of physical paint VR headset setup. I just haven't gotten there yet. But yeah, I think it's really exciting.
[00:33:40.518] Kent Bye: Okay, yeah, I just did a recent interview with Brad Lynch, who was talking a lot about the different overlays that he's been using within the context of Apple Vision Pro, where he's been in Apple Vision Pro using ALVR, but also the excess overlay, the OVR advanced settings. And there was another like VR hands picture where you can basically make a gesture with your hands like you're taking a photo, like framing a photo with two Ls. Oh, wow. That would take a screenshot and do translations and other stuff. So yeah, the whole overlays with SteamVR, when you have PC VR, you can actually like... have their overlay system. And so it sounds like you're able to be in VRChat, but then is it a Steam overlay or do you have to use like Access Overlay or any other existing plugins or how do you actually match these two together?
[00:34:23.822] BabyBonito: I think it's Steam. I think it's just through Steam, I'm pretty sure. So it's in Steam, like I'll open up VRChat and then while VRChat is open, I go to Vermillion and then there's an option that says overlay on top of other apps. So I think you could actually overlay it on top of like any, it does take its toll. on your computer, like my fans start going, but it works. So it's just those two things. And yeah, one thing I did want to mention about the Vermillion experience is that it doesn't break my immersion at all because it just kind of plops a canvas over top of you while you're in world with everybody. And still having a sense of like, because I prefer not drawing from a photograph of a virtual world because I feel like that kind of breaks it for me a little bit. But yeah, Vermilion really allows that like true immersion painting, which I don't really want to get rid of. And I feel like that's why I've been resisting the physical paints, but should try. Yeah.
[00:35:20.489] Kent Bye: Nice. Well, you documented certainly a pocket of some of these indie artist communities that are painting within VR. Are there any other communities that you're involved with that you consider to be this avant-garde experimental art communities? Maybe that's all of VR chat, but are there any other kind of pockets of those communities?
[00:35:36.801] BabyBonito: Oh my God, there's so many. Well, I'm not a part, can I talk about a community I'm not a part of? I don't know if you're interviewing anyone from the The fraction of the modulated soul and the moon pool experiences I went to them.
[00:35:52.925] Kent Bye: Yeah, that was Softly Steph and Apple Blossom.
[00:35:56.626] BabyBonito: Apple Blossom, yeah. It's called something. Yeah.
[00:36:00.627] Kent Bye: It's the SNR community, I think.
[00:36:02.188] BabyBonito: SNR community, yes, yes. I was so blown away. I had chills the whole performance. I am so excited by all the work that they're doing. And that was another pocket that I had never... I knew some of them, their names, from just being around. But I did not know anything about what they were working on. And yeah, getting to see those shows, which I feel like I can take a million pictures and it will never fully capture the experience that I experienced. But yeah, that community I'm like so, so interested in. I want to get to know more about them.
[00:36:37.128] Kent Bye: Yeah, the SNR Labs, Apple Blossom, and ADDOS had created this really black magic way of doing a new form of volumetric capture where they would have essentially six cameras on a virtual object that would then get translated into an MOV file that then would use the green channel of an HVAC. Just a minute. encoding that then would be decoded into a shader that then would create basically volumetric particles of an entire performance that softly stuff was dancing to. So yeah, it was pretty incredible, like fusion of all these different cutting edge technologies to take what is possible within the context of dance, but then add all these other interactive elements in the moment that are then captured and replayed back and then have more real time moments as well. So yeah, really kind of black magic-y, you know, like pushing the edge of what the technology can do.
[00:37:30.103] BabyBonito: Yeah. I also felt like it was just so incredibly thoughtful and thought-provoking. I know there's some things where I feel like we get a bit of, as artists working in the field, I feel like I get a little bit more praise than is worth because people are like, oh, I've never seen this done before in this technology. But I feel like the performances I saw, I was like, okay. I think even if this isn't cutting edge technology anymore, the heart of the performance really felt thoughtful and
[00:38:00.163] Kent Bye: profound in a way where i was like oh yes this feels so good yeah i don't have anything on the books yet but i'm hoping to follow up with them to break down because it's another instance of how the technology can drive the art that's even possible and the iterative process of making technological innovations that then feed back into new expressions and i felt like It all really came together along with really tapping into the music communities of people that are doing their own original songs and music that are also included in that specific performance. But I know that that's also a number of different communities who are really pushing forward what's possible with not only the creation and exhibition of music with music videos, but also like the whole dance club scene, which is a whole other dimensions of the VR chat communities.
[00:38:46.186] BabyBonito: Yeah, 100%.
[00:38:48.180] Kent Bye: So, yeah, I guess as you think about your own future and journey, are there any other big projects you're working on or community things you hope to explore? Or, you know, if you're hanging out with friends or if you're actually creating and making stuff that you want to kind of push the edge of and love to hear about, you know, anything that you might be headed towards in the future.
[00:39:08.621] BabyBonito: Yeah, lots of things. I think they're just really slow because we try and be as sustainable as possible with people's time and energy. But for the Glitches team, we're working towards creating more of that sort of documenting style of... video work. We want to do more video work. And Armani is going to continue his series, VR is Alive, where he interviews underrepresented content creators and archives their methods and the thought process behind their work, which is really exciting. And then personally, I've been working on this Quill World project that's kind of ambitious. So it's probably going to take forever. But I really would love to focus more on like weaving a web of connections with people that I don't usually have access to. So I'm going to try and, yeah, collaborate more. I feel like we're already so collaborative, but I would like to collaborate more with people that are kind of like outside my current bubble, you know, and get into the other platforms. Oh, my gosh. Wait, actually, can I highlight Medro's community and Resonate? Yeah, for sure. For sure, yeah. I have only been in there three or four times, but every time I go into Resonate, I always bump into someone that's so welcoming and you can tell they're just so passionate about the platform and they're trying to teach me all the things. I find the work liminal and all the work that's happening in Resonate is so interesting and yeah, that community I'm like super interested in and I hope they, they keep doing more and let me take, like hold my hand when I'm in there because I'm not a programmer or anything. So that's a goal.
[00:40:47.864] Kent Bye: Yeah. Fruity is one of the lead developers who was really the chief architect between Neos and when everything switched over from Neos VR over into Resonate, he's really created it. I would say a very developer centric platform where you can be in VR and create in VR. And so there's like a kind of like a Swiss army knife of tools to be able to create these immersive experiences. But I think as a consumer of the experiences, I always find the user interface to be not very intuitive and always have to be, have things explained to how do you have my handheld going in there because it's just feels so overwhelming.
[00:41:24.659] BabyBonito: Literally, every time I go in, I'm like, what's happening? But then you watch them like work together and it's like, oh, somebody just made this asset and then they'll just plop it in front of them. And then somebody else will be like, oh, do you want me to like rig that up? And I was like, what? You can do that? And then two minutes later, they had like a full avatar ready to go. And I was like, Jesus, so cool.
[00:41:46.027] Kent Bye: I'm going to be seeing the tales of a mystic cat on next Monday and resonate. And I saw the liminal space. So able to see that as well. I was going to ask if you've been seeing some of the different quill illustration, like stories that have been coming out. No tales from a soda Island is one that has.
[00:42:03.494] BabyBonito: I love that series.
[00:42:04.875] Kent Bye: Studio Syro and just did a whole series of different Quill animation pieces that like the Reimagined series and Illustration and lots of different amazing stories that are being told, shown at a lot of the film festival circuit, but also generally available for folks to check out. But wondering if that's something that you're aspiring towards to tell a story that's completely self-contained within Quill, or if you want to build a world and start to bring it within VRChat to have a little bit more of a social experience.
[00:42:33.086] BabyBonito: Yeah, I'm so inspired by it. It's called the Virtual Animation. They have a Discord and a YouTube channel, but they do mostly Quill stuff. And yeah, the projects in that inspired me so much. I think for two weeks, I was just watching Tales from Soda Island every day, just trying to figure out how they did everything. But I think for me, since I just spend so much time in the worlds, kind of having agency over my body and interacting with avatars, I think I wanted to focus on bringing this sort of worlds and that kind of abstract, illustrated space that Quill provides where it's really stylish. I'd like to bring that into... VR chat or any real platform that I can, where people can actually like socialize and run around inside of it. I'm not sure. I mean, ideally I would make a story, but I don't know if I have that in me, but would love to try.
[00:43:27.904] Kent Bye: I'd recommend checking out Maya, The Birth of a Superhero, if you haven't checked it out yet on the Quest platform. Okay. It's created in Quill, but is brought into Unity and has some interactive components. And I think it's a good example of how you can take a trip and a journey. It's definitely more of a story rather than a fully interactive social space, but... It may give you some ideas for what's possible for bringing in those cool assets into the context of a fully immersive interactive VR space. Metamorphosis was one of the first that did that. That was at Sundance a number of years ago. Matthew Niederhauser and his collaborators that were bringing that in. But yeah, I definitely recommend checking out Maya, The Birth of a Superhero, just because it's... It does a really great job of bringing Quill illustrated assets into a fully interactive, immersive experience. And it's just a really well-told story. And it's got like this kind of dream logic and surrealism and mythic. It feels like you're in a waking dream in the way that it tells a story around menstrual taboos. So I would recommend it.
[00:44:30.025] BabyBonito: Okay. Thank you. Yeah, that sounds great.
[00:44:32.767] Kent Bye: So... Cool. Well, I guess as we start to wrap up, I'd love to hear what you think the ultimate potential of virtual reality might be and what it might be able to enable.
[00:44:42.252] BabyBonito: Yes. I think the potential is huge, obviously. It's why I'm here. I think it can connect people in ways that... are so unexpected and interesting. But I also have anxieties because I think people need to have access, and they need to have agency. And in order for everyone to be on the platform, a lot has got to change. Even who owns the hardware and how it's made is a huge issue for me. So I want everybody to have access and to be able to play with it and do their best. And then we could probably work together in really cool and interesting ways.
[00:45:21.428] Kent Bye: Yeah, I'd just love to get any quick takes on VRChat. They had recent layoffs. They're trying to aim towards a creator economy. I feel like a lot of the stuff that we've been talking about and that you've been mentioning has been really for people who have the time and energy and excess resources to produce this type of experiences. But it's not necessarily like a career or viable career for many people. But in order to really get to that space of being accessible for a lot more people, then I think it would have to actually have more ways to make it more of a sustainable venture for some people to create on the platform. So I'd love to hear any reflections you have on the creator economy.
[00:46:02.845] BabyBonito: I think about this so much. But I honestly don't. I don't know what the right move is on this. Because on one hand, I feel like you're going to get worse art if it's for money. If the creator economy goes through, it's not going to be as exciting. It's not going to be as interesting. And I don't know. I feel like there's going to be a lot of shifts into, what people are making and why and uh that's really unfortunate because part of the excitement is like people are just making things for the love of it or because yeah because they want to express something but yeah at the same time people need to get paid we need money in a perfect world i feel like we just have like ubi and then i'll have time to like to do vr stuff but yeah i'm nervous i'm nervous for the future of the platform i guess
[00:46:49.795] Kent Bye: Yeah, I mean, the model that they have with the VRChat Plus and the subscriptions, if there were enough people that were doing that, then they could potentially feasibly cover all their costs, all their employees, and potentially start to feed back into the creator economy. That's something that Fortnite aspired to in some ways with the Unreal Engine and with Epic Games, you know, striving towards that. So, but yeah, I don't know. I feel like that's sort of the idealized version of how they could maintain that type of indie spirit, but also make it sustainable.
[00:47:18.380] BabyBonito: Yeah. I don't know. I don't like as an artist, I don't know if it's possible because as soon as money's involved, your relationship to your work changes, right? Like once it becomes your living, it's like just different. I'm glad people can do it. Like I want people to have their physical needs met, obviously their material needs, but it does something to the work. I think that would be really unfortunate to lose. Yeah.
[00:47:44.177] Kent Bye: Well, I want to get your quick thoughts on that since I think it's relevant.
[00:47:47.782] BabyBonito: Yeah, no, it is. It's timely. Everybody's thinking about it, I think.
[00:47:51.583] Kent Bye: Great. Yeah, it's definitely a paradoxical. I think there's been like social psychology research. When you have people do something for their passions and love, it's got one vibe. And then when you pay them to do the same thing, it completely changes the relationship to it.
[00:48:07.087] BabyBonito: So yeah, me, every time I get a job in a creative field, I'm like, this is going to be my dream job. I'm going to love this. And then I get the job and I'm like, I'm kind of over it now.
[00:48:17.671] Kent Bye: Well, is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say to the broader immersive community?
[00:48:23.232] BabyBonito: No, I think that's it.
[00:48:25.073] Kent Bye: Okay. Well, Benito, thanks so much for joining me today to help break down some of your adventures into social VR identity and what's happening in the indie art scene, the different pockets that you've been exploring and wanting to highlight these different communities and Yeah, definitely recommend folks to go check out glitchesvr.substack.com to follow some of the different writings that you and other folks in the community are doing, some of the videos and other documentation to help document these pockets of culture. And yeah, very much look forward to seeing where you take these kind of indie art experiments here in the future. So thanks again for joining me here on the podcast.
[00:48:58.987] BabyBonito: Thank you so much. It was fun.
[00:49:01.553] Kent Bye: So that was Baby Benito, also just more simply known as Benito. And she's an artist and creator within VRChat. She participates in a number of different VRChat communities. And she's a part of a creative collective in VR called Glitches VR. So I've had a number of different takeaways about this interview is that, first of all, Well, it was just super fascinating just to hear all the different entry points and pockets of artistic expression that's happening in the context of VRChat. As an artist who's been traditionally trained going through art school, then there's lots of different medians and modalities for how you start to express yourself within VR. And with her background in illustration, she tends to create these more impressionistic, almost like still life worlds and experiences. It's like a quick sketch and you get a little bit of a vibe of what you can do with world building. But also she's been diving into avatar creation and she's got a very distinct avatar with like a fish on the top of her head that kind of wiggles around. And yeah, she's got Benito's Hatchery that has some other avatars that you can go check out and wear if you're looking for some good avatar skins. She's also a part of this Glitches VR creative collective, which she describes as like a way for this group of people to stay together, both from the context of just collaboratively working on different projects. And also they have a whole sub stack where they're reporting of what's happening in the context of virtual culture, specifically looking at different artists and creative communities of what's happening in the platform. With the groups within VRChat, it's a new opportunity to get connected to lots of different creative collective groups. You can look at someone's profile and kind of see, okay, what are the different groups that people are in? And then from there, you can start to join some of those groups. If it's a public group, sometimes they're private groups by which sometimes you have to go through Discord or, you know, know someone who knows someone who can get you into some of those more private groups. But Yeah, it's just an opportunity to get more connected into some of these different types of artistic communities. Raindance is a great event just because it really brings these communities together and you can sign up and see some of these different events that you may not have access to otherwise or may have just never even heard of. So that's the value of having curators as a part of the Raindance team to start to bring these different communities together. Benito mentioned a couple of artists that I just want to follow up on. Softly Staff did the Frictions of a Modulated Soul, which ended up winning the best dance performance in Rain Dance Immersive 2024. Apple Blossom and Adidas, they were putting together the Night Under the Light, the Seasons at the Moon Pool. And so I have a whole deep dive with both Apple Blossom and Adidas diving much more into that, which that experience is now available. They just published it yesterday. And then softly stuff is in the process of translating her frictions of a modulated soul into, you know, capturing that. So that can be replayable as well, but also have an interview with softly stuff. Also Medra and resonate. I do a whole deep dive digging into what's happening on resonate, which is a whole other platform that is more developer centric. And you tend to get a little bit more people who are wanting to build VR experiences within the context of VR. So you have, more of a Swiss Army knife of tools and capabilities that can have a lot of cognitive load and be overwhelming, but also is probably one of the most powerful tools that are out there to start to build immersive experiences, especially while you're in VR. So be diving into that here as well as part of this whole series of looking at Marine Dance. There's some very interesting things that Benito was saying in terms of, you know, she's worried about the quality of the art that's being created if the motivations are shifting and changing. And the social psychology research that I didn't name specifically, but it's this difference between the intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. Whereas it seems to be right now, like VR chats in this bubble where most of the different types of creations that are happening on the platform are purely driven by this internal intrinsic need for people to express themselves and to create art and to connect to each other and once that shifts over into this more extrinsic motivation where they're doing it to you know move from just a hobby into something that's more of a profession and a career i think at some point it's this transition that has to happen in order for the platform to really grow and sustain itself But it's also this kind of tricky balance because you're talking about the different types of monetization schemes that are forcing people to think about it as more of an extrinsic motivation of like, how does this make money versus just creating something that you can share? And this is something that came up a lot when I was talking to a number of different artists and creators that were participating in Rain Dance Immersive. And it could very well be that the types of art and immersive worlds are being created, maybe just an artifact of any new medium that you always have this kind of cinema of attractions type of phase that's what it's called in film where you would have these films that were being shown more as a spectacle at a carnival or an event that was separate than people creating films as a part of their profession but obviously film is an incredibly powerful medium that people can actually make a living on because there's enough of demand and whole ecosystem where people can make it their careers and so it's this question of like okay how do we transition from this cinema attractions type of phase of where vr is right now into this more professionalized but also more robust and more creative and more diversity of people that are actually making things because it could be that people want to make more stuff but just you know they have to make it more of a professional living rather than just something that's a hobby so you tend to see a lot more people that are spending their extra time within the context of these platforms to be able to create so Those are some of the deeper thoughts that I've sort of been unpacking as I've been talking to lots of different people within the VRChat community. And I think that'll start to play out as I air more of these interviews that I've done with different world builders within the context of VRChat, asking them about the creator economy and how's the creator economy start to fit into what they're doing. When I had the discussion earlier talking to Table, Unix, Mistabi, and QDOT, one of the things that Table said was that we really need some sort of tip system where it's much more around people feeling like they want to give something, like more of a donation or more of a donna or something that is kind of more of a gift economy, a patronage or Ko-Fi or other models where it's less about like a direct exchange where it's transactional, where I give you this and I get this. It's more of like, You have freely given of your gifts of creating this world, and I want to support that by giving you a gift of this money to be able to sustain yourself to have more of this type of creation. This is very much how I've been doing the Voices of VR podcast and that spirit of the gift and having enough people that are supporting me to continue to do these deep dives and these different discussions. I feel like there's some kernel of like maybe these are the types of business models that are going to be moving towards. I think, you know, VRChat has a VRChat Plus, which is in that spirit of like you get some benefits for having a VRChat Plus membership and they're going to be obviously shipping more and more features so that it maybe catalyzes people into make it more of a transactional catalyst for why people are joining in versus something that, you know, they just feel like they want to support something that they're getting a lot of value out of. So yeah, that's just some of the deeper thoughts in terms of like some of this dynamic of the people who are those artists who are creating from the space of just pure intrinsic motivation. What happens when those motivations shift into more of an extrinsic motivation where it's more driven by money? How does that change the content that's being created and what's being promoted and the type of culture and community that's existing on the platform? So there's kind of like some general anxiety as to not knowing how all these things are going to shift once the platform and the rules around it start to shift as well. And yeah, definitely check out the Painters of Virtual Reality. Benita's also got a number of other videos that she has on her YouTube channel that you can go watch and see ways that she's been documenting the culture within VRChat. And also the Glitches VR Substack is by this creative collective that is doing more regular coverage and articles writing about all sorts of different things that are happening on the platform. So definitely check out happening on the glitches substack to be able to get a little bit more around like other folks like myself who are going in and trying to document some of the amazing things that they're seeing on the platform and just getting the word out just because it is a community of hundreds of thousands or millions of people. And there's lots of different interesting, creative, artistic things that are happening on the platform and just a real great chance to get a little snapshot there from Benito and what she's seeing on the platform. And as I continue on the series of the Voices of VR, you'll hear a lot more of some of those different pockets of communities that are really pushing the edge of creativity and the freedom of expression in the context of co-creating virtual culture. So that's all I have for today. And I just wanted to thank you for listening to the Voices of VR podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, then please do spread the word, tell your friends, and consider becoming a member of the Patreon. This is a listener-supported podcast, and so I do rely upon donations from people like yourself in order to continue to bring you this coverage. So you can become a member and donate today at patreon.com slash voices of VR. Thanks for listening.
