I interviewed Fragile Home director Ondrej Moravec at Venice Immersive 2024. See more context in the rough transcript below.
There were also allegations of copyright infringement that were made within the context of a private WhatsApp group during the festival, and Moravec distributed an official statement privately to selected people privately on September 2nd, and then he shared his statement with me after the festival to be included here as an official comment on the matter.
Here’s their artist’s statement about Fragile Home:
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Music: Fatality
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.478] Kent Bye: Hello, my name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of VR podcast. It's a podcast that looks at the structures and forms of immersive storytelling and the future of spatial computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. So continuing my series of looking at different immersive stories from Venice Immersive 2024, today's episode is about a piece called Fragile Home, which is a mixed reality piece that is set in the context of Ukraine and Ukraine. So you're in a living room and so then you go up to these different floating orbs and then it translates that into a portal into looking at a house that goes through a number of different seasons. Then one of the seasons are in the aftermath of war. And so you kind of see the progression of this home through the context of resilience and survival from war and occupation from the context of your home. But through this kind of environmental storytelling, that's really quite sparse in the way that is telling the story. Also has just amazing music that I think is really quite emotionally moving. I found it really deeply moving and it was one of my favorite projects from this year. There were some accusations that were happening in the private WhatsApp group that there was some kind of copyright violations with one of the previous collaborators and I'll link to the response that Andre had responding to some of these different accusations and It's kind of beyond the scope of my reporting to kind of understand what the truth of that is. But at least I'll be pointing to the statement being made around that. And the show notes here, they can check into that more. So that's what we're coming on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Andre happened on Friday, August 30th, 2024. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:01:49.622] Ondrej Moravec: So my name is Ondrej and I'm working in the immersive field for, I don't know, five, six, seven years. And I'm presenting here the second part of the Ukrainian project. The first part was called Fresh Memories Deluxe and the second one is Fragile Home, which we present here in the competition.
[00:02:08.073] Kent Bye: Great. Maybe you could give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into the space.
[00:02:13.359] Ondrej Moravec: Well, I started as a curator for several festivals in Czech Republic and then a few years back I decided to step on the ground as a XR maker. I studied journalism at the beginning and then screenwriting on the film school, so this is my background and now I'm trying to combine it somehow with all the new technologies. And yeah, then I also started with the new festival, which is called Art VR. It's in Prague. We will have a second edition this year. And my previous projects were Darkening, which was premiered here in 2022. And then there were some other smaller ones. Okay.
[00:02:53.177] Kent Bye: So, yeah, I think being a curator, you had a chance to see a lot of work and get a sense of what works and what doesn't work. And, you know, we've had a couple of conversations of your previous two projects, The Darkening and The First Look. And The First Look, it's first of the two series, at least for now, that have been focusing on the war in Ukraine and Ukraine. In that piece, you were much more focusing in on having an encounter or having people stand in a context of the aftermath of war and someone who is connected to that location. And so this is the second piece, but maybe you could take us back to like where both of these projects began. When did you decide that you wanted to start to do a bit of series of telling the story of what's happening in Ukraine through immersive media?
[00:03:40.046] Ondrej Moravec: Well it all started in 2022 when the war started. We decided that we want to create something because it was very emotional for us as a Czech people as well because we were occupied for almost 30 years by Soviet Union so we know what is the feeling and even me who was born a bit later or just one year in this occupation so it resonates a lot in our society and we decided that we want to create a project which will be the union of Ukrainian artists and Czech artists to work on it together. From the beginning we wanted to create some six-dorf experience because that's the field what I like the most in a sense but we found out that it will be quite a longer process than we expected So meantime there was a possibility to shoot on 360 camera one more piece which would be touching the Ukrainian topic and we decided to create this 360 immersive experience, the look where you are looking into the eyes of people from Kharkiv and you are trying to create this emotional connection. And meanwhile we were working on this larger piece, kind of an older brother and even though that it's younger, but let's call it bigger brother maybe, let's call it like that. And yeah, from very early on, by the end of 2022, we decided that we want to step into the mixed reality field because we started to work on more projects like connected with that. And like we felt that that's really interesting, a new way how to tell the stories and the idea that your room would kind of change into the Ukrainian reality was very tempting. So we tried to do anything we could to make it happen.
[00:05:29.272] Kent Bye: And I can see a bit of a through line or connections at least between the two pieces in terms of the some of the different scenes that you're diving into. And so maybe it's worth taking us back to like first look and the general idea that you wanted to do with this piece that came after you started working on this six off piece, but you were on the fields and front lines in Ukraine, shooting the aftermath, working with different local citizens of the area. And so, yeah, maybe just describe a little bit about what you were trying to do in that piece with the setting, the set and setting, and also these encounters that you had with people gazing in the camera. And you have this opportunity to connect to something deeper that's happening with the reality of the war and the aftermath of it.
[00:06:16.641] Ondrej Moravec: So you mean the Fresh Memories project now?
[00:06:18.603] Kent Bye: Yeah.
[00:06:20.024] Ondrej Moravec: So it was kind of a, as I said, very quick project. So we get some money from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which you could use for the shooting together with one of the Ukrainian colleagues who was co-director of that. So we went to Ukraine. Actually, me personally, I was not able to step in because that was the time when when the massive shooting began so I kind of stepped to Ukraine and then had to come back and for the actual shooting I needed to stay behind the borders and be there only online and my colleague could continue on that so I was then more on the field of the post-production. But the process was very, let's say, eclectic in terms of that we had a concept, we had a camera, we had a fixer on the space who was searching for us, for the people who were open to collaborate with us, which was kind of surprising that a lot of people wanted. They were not shy, even though they were a bit shy. afraid from this like a bit alien looking 360 camera and watching into it and imagining that it's somebody from the west who they are trying to connect the bond with but it went surprisingly very smooth you know and then we finished it the post-production was like one and a half months also very quick and we premiered it at South by Southwest and we had a really good reaction on that actually it was premiered at South by Southwest and then shown on like 30 festivals worldwide also at MetaTV where it had really good numbers in terms of viewing. So it was for us a good sign that there's interest in this topic and that it makes sense. So it gave us some energy to continue on on Fragile Home.
[00:08:02.188] Kent Bye: So it sounds like the project for Fragile Home, the project that came after the first look fresh memories. So talk about like, where did the inspiration for the concept or idea that you were going for? What was the catalyst that gave you the inspiration to pursue this as an immersive project that's in mixed reality?
[00:08:20.996] Ondrej Moravec: There was a long way in the script making, let's say, of the project because at the beginning, at the very beginning it was supposed to be virtual reality, story of one older woman, how she's not willing to leave her house even though it's under the attacks. Then it was kind of a semi-fictional, semi-documentary story. Then we decided to go to the real documentary story of one guy who did the same. We wanted to focus on old people because it's quite common that older people are not willing to leave their houses even though there is a big threat around them. So the narrative line was for a long time quite, I would say, classic, clear and purely narrative. But then we decided after, I don't know where it came from, it just kind of rang the bell for me that, okay, maybe I don't want to tell like the classic story just in the mixed reality environment, you know. I want to play with it more gently and more, let's say, I don't want to say like in an experimental way but maybe in a less obvious narrative way. So we decided to choose like four songs which will be the main skeleton of the experience instead of any dialogues or narrative. The reason why I decided to choose the songs is because also a few years before the war started I was going for some lessons of Ukrainian songs and singing and I fell in love with that because it's beautiful. And as for those who know Darkening, which was about using the voice, so for me like using the voice even in singing is very powerful tool. So I kind of wanted and needed something what's personal to me in the project. And the songs became the platform for that. So we, together with my Ukrainian colleagues, selected the best songs which would be fitting that. There's the arc that the first song is kind of a calm one, praying the field, you know, what's typical for Ukraine. The second one is already sad because it's about Sad Holy Night and it's connected to the Euromaidan from 2014 and the third one is actual like morning song which is song during the burials of Ukrainian soldiers nowadays and the fourth one Red Kalina is like I would say current national almost anthem which everybody is singing it in the streets in the metro when you arrive to Ukraine that's the first thing you hear actually it's a very hopeful song which is cherishing the fact that the Ukraine will not fall you know so that became very important for me and I wanted to build it on that And then there was no more space for any other, let's say, more narrative structures. So we decided that it will be just four chapters changing the mood of the room in this period of time, let's say 10 years. It could be, it's not specified what's the time. and it comes to you slowly. You need to think about it a bit, but not much. It will hopefully come somehow naturally. And you are just observing what's happening around you, which new objects are appearing here, what could be the story behind them. In the second chapter, when there is a helmet which appears on one of the tables, so you know that there is something happening probably. And then on the pictures you find out that the family is going to demonstrations on Euromaidan. And I felt that it's kind of nice that I don't want to tell the story anyhow directly because it's actually a very simple story. There are no buts in it. So that's why we decided to choose this structure which can allow us to follow this kind of easy, not easy, but simple story.
[00:12:18.991] Kent Bye: Yeah, I think in terms of just the environmental storytelling, so how much of the story can you tell by the environment, but also the environment as it changes, because you have an interaction paradigm where you have these kind of glowing orb-like shimmering places that are very clear that you could go over to, and then when you go over to it, then it... transforms whatever is happening in the existing mundane installation. I guess it's worth mentioning that this is a site-specific installation that I saw it here at Venice Immersive where you're essentially in someone's home. It's like a living room and a dining room area. It's trying to recreate the archetypal essence of the different portions of a home where there'd be a wall with photos, a dinner table with food, there's a couch to sit down on, there's a mirror. So there's these different waypoints that you're going to and then When you go over there, then you're deciding to use the mixed reality to then blend and blur this, transporting us into a Ukrainian field with like sunflowers and other signifiers that would indicate to us that we're in another time and place perhaps. Yeah, I'd love to hear about your process of designing these portals that are into another world and using the mixed reality in that way that is using the affordances of our expectations of what it's like to be in these home areas that are immediately obvious when we go in. It kind of reminds us of our own homes that we've lived in. Then you're able to then transform throughout the course of the project. So I'd love to hear the process of both the set design and then the portals and mixed reality interactions that you're creating.
[00:13:52.287] Ondrej Moravec: Okay. So for the actual set design of both the physical space and the virtual objects, virtual space in mixed reality, it was very important my collaboration with Viktoria Lopukhina, who is the second director of the piece. She used to work as an architect, so it was very good to have the conversations with her, what's kind of natural to have in the Ukrainian household, where sometimes it was kind of a... For most of the things we agreed, but I remember there was one thing which was kind of funny, that she wanted to have in this little hall, which is out of the main door in the experience, the little broom, you know, which for me looked like from the 19th century. And I was like, okay, I don't feel that this is fitting. We still want to create the current household in Ukraine. We are not creating a museum of a folklore. That was for me very important, that we wanted to show the folklore things, the ceramics and their patterns there, a lot of very typical Ukrainian things, but we still wanted to create it in a way that it's a living space. And this broom for me looked a little bit like from the museum, and she was like, No, no, we really have it. And now when she's back in Ukraine, she sent me a picture of her broom in her house. She's still having it. So that was kind of a joke in between us. But yeah, that was crucial to find a good balance between And also because not only that it doesn't look like a museum, but the idea was to shift the Ukrainian reality with the other reality, let's say. But they can overlap normally. Ukraine is not like an island of exotic furniture or whatever, you know. So the combination with kind of a common furniture which in our installation is from IKEA because they are our partners and it was our purpose to have it from them because I don't know how in the US but in Europe many many people have this furniture in their home so we wanted to feel this kind of attachment to the furniture. And to create this combination, so for example, one of the viewers here said, oh, I wanted to go to the lamp actually, and I wanted to touch it. It's kind of a nice model. And then I realized that it's just passed through, you know, and it's a real lamp, you know, which is still appeared all the time in the room, even though the digital furniture of the Ukrainian... things are around. So this mixture was for me important that something is Ukrainian, something is like neutral all the time and to create this feeling. What was for me also very important was that you can somehow interact with the objects in the mixed reality even though that we didn't want to create any like super complicated puzzles or anything you know but again I had a feeling that if there would be no interactions it would feel again as a museum where you can't touch anything you know but we wanted to give you the feeling that you can touch it you can grab a plate it doesn't do anything you know in your hand or maybe you can find some there are a few messages hidden you know around which can give you a more of a context but a lot of objects you can just grab you know So that was for us important to have this tactility in the experience. And then like the whole topic of the mixed reality and like how to attach the real furniture to the digital one. It was a long process and it was not easy because it's still new technology and Meta who is, we are doing it for Meta headsets. So they are still developing it as well. So we created something and then Meta came with a new update and it was like, okay, so we can start again, you know, or we need to, you know, change all our pipeline because of that. Because, you know, when, for example, the mesh came, you know, into the game, which you can nicely see how they work with it with colleagues from Impulse, for example. So it was for us, okay, so what should we do with the mesh? You know, how will we creatively use it? in the experience and it happened like a few months back actually so it was challenging to combine these things we tried to not to be too much under the temptation of the new things which the developers from Meta were offering us so we kind of stick that we will leave it for the furniture you know and all these things you know and it worked nicely at the beginning there were problems that the rotation of the furniture could be wrong you know so then the illusion was kind of a problem and lost And what's still not a good thing, and I hope that maybe for some future updates of the project, there is a big occlusion. So you are losing your body in the digital headsets. They are overlapping your body. And actually, there is already a way how to do that, but it eats a lot of power, actually. So then it would be very lagging, the experience, so we decided not to use it. So there were a lot of things which we needed to think about and somehow put it together and doing the compromises as well.
[00:18:47.950] Kent Bye: Yeah. So the kind of mixed reality portals that you have are a lot more localized and contained and they're not spread out across the entire, sometimes it is, it turns into more of a completely immersive VR experience. But for most of the different scenes, you're just creating more of a contained. And I think I did notice that it was, you know, I lifted my hand and it gets secluded. I have a Apple Vision Pro and the Apple Vision Pro does a great job of showing your hands over the virtualized background, but there's still some artifacts around my fingers and it's So I guess either way, I just had my hands down to just try to preserve the illusion. But you did mention something I want to follow up on, and then we'll get back to the design of the experience. But IKEA, as a sponsor, is listed in the credits. You just mentioned that they were coming on board to help out and sponsor the project in some fashion. I was a bit surprised to see their name just because, you know, this seems to be a very independent, creative project that is also got some political implications. I'm sure they're obviously on the side of Ukraine, but there could be other business reasons for why they may not want to take a side for one side or if they have business in Russia. So, yeah, just talk a little bit about that process of reaching out and having IKEA come on to a project like this.
[00:20:01.661] Ondrej Moravec: Actually we approached IKEA because we felt that like it's a good choice because they're from the reason which I mentioned because the furniture is everywhere but also what we found out at least in the Czech Republic or because IKEA is a big conglomerate of course you know so it has a different policies in a global world you know but the unit which is for middle or for the central Europe actually and where is there's a headquarter in Prague and So they had a big focus on Ukraine when the war started, so they were giving the furniture to the refugees for free, they were organizing language courses for them, you know, so for them it was kind of very important to step on this field and when we asked them for collaboration, so they said, okay, but we want to also be somehow part of the, you know, if there will be some panel debates or something like that, we have our people here who are from Ukraine and it would be nice if they could be included in that. so i i felt from them that they really care about the topic actually and yeah so so for me it was kind of a very smooth collaboration it was not about big money it was mostly about some promotion and about the furniture actually but that's quite crucial for the whole experience for their presence at the festivals and so on so we were very lucky to have them
[00:21:17.864] Kent Bye: Okay, so if it does end up going out and traveling around, then they may be having their local furniture because you have all this furniture that you have to have for your installation. So it makes sense that if you want to travel this around, you're going to have to populate your set of your family home with some actual furniture.
[00:21:32.898] Ondrej Moravec: Yeah, that's the idea and hopefully it will work like that but for example we will be showing now the project in Taiwan in two months where we wanted to connect with Taiwanese IKEA but it's already a different world already so even though the colleagues know themselves you know so the rules are a bit different you know so The idea that it would work everywhere in the world would be kind of a fairy tale, you know, but for some of the territories where there are good connections of Czech IKEA with the others, I believe that it will happen.
[00:22:04.690] Kent Bye: Okay. Yeah, it was something that was surprising, but I guess it makes sense as you explain it now for how they're playing a part in that. So it sounds like from this project, it actually was very early in development, even earlier than the first look, Fresh Memories. And now, as you had mentioned, it's gone through a number of different iterations, but I'm Curious, as you were putting together this piece, there's the whole mixed reality component, all the technology, what you can and can't do. There's the songs, which I feel like is kind of the heart of the piece. For me, it was so emotionally moving just to hear those songs and the way that as you touch each of the different points of interaction, it's almost like a chorus that's surrounding me and it was building each time I... interacting so there was a way in which that the song was able to be connected to those interactions in a way that gave the interactions a little bit more weight because you're revealing something that's on the other side and there's something visually there but I feel like there was more of a like a narrative arc that you're doing with the music that is taking me on a whole other journey that I couldn't understand any of the lyrics but I could understand the feeling that was being communicated and I felt like yeah just thinking about those songs it just like pulls my heartstrings to hear how hauntingly beautiful that was but as you were putting together this piece i'm curious how each of all those different puzzle pieces came together with the mixed reality components and the song and trying to come up with the interactions that made sense and yeah just talk about your iterative process for how you were starting to put in the scaffolding for bringing all these things together that are really working so beautifully together. But I know that's not like an easy thing to pull off and it requires many iterations and design. I'm just curious where you started to begin and starting to piece all that together.
[00:23:53.075] Ondrej Moravec: I'm glad that you're saying that because the project looks at the end of the day quite simple but to make it look simple there needs to be a lot of work done. I'm so glad that you're mentioning the songs and the music part because not many people can mention that actually because they are too overwhelmed by the mixed reality aspect and the visuals. and so on and the music is there for them there but a little bit back you know but for me it was as you say kind of a heart of the project you know and the idea that when you come to the island where you discover the new ukrainian reality so you are actually composing the ukrainian polyphony there because ukrainian polyphony is in unesco it's like a beautiful way of singing so if you would stay the whole time on one place you would hear just one voice And there are people who decide just to sit on the sofa, even though that we are saying them that it's better to move around a bit, but they want to do it like that. So then they listen just to the one voice. And when you go around on these six stations, which we have there, you're creating the choir and you are making the choir alive by your movement and giving the voice to Ukrainian people. So yeah, I'm really glad that you mentioned that. And then the iterative process which you asked for. Well, the first point which was for us difficult was to find out how the island of Ukrainian reality will appear. Because it's not easy with MetaQuest devices to create any how smoothing transitions, let's say. You would say, okay, it could be just a fade in, fade out. No, it doesn't work like that in Mixed Reality, because even though it sounds easier, in every video you can see that, so it's very hard to work with any transparent material in not only Mixed Reality, but in Virtual Reality for the standalone experiences. So we came with this kind of shader which is moving, it reminds some water texture which is changing it. So we spent a lot of time on that, so we were sure that it looks nice. And that the changing of the material looks nice because it's kind of not that coherent. So even though that the dressing up is starting, so you can still see in this bubbling, you know, the original furniture and on top of it the new layer of the furniture is being created. So that was very, yeah, it had to be very precise. And then when we finished this up, you know, so then the big task for the iterations was like, like, you know, the lighting, how it will look like, the colors, you know, so they are matching the surrounding. We use the colored pass-through actually. So in all of the chapters, you can't see the natural light, but the artificial light created by us for the pass-through. So all the furniture, all the parts look natural and good. And then there were, of course, the interactions, which were also quite challenging in terms of eating of the engine and the power. So we needed to be careful about that. And also very difficult were the views out of the window and door, because these are the most, let's say, complex portals into the bigger pieces, like virtual pieces, which are not combined with anything, just with a frame of the window or a frame of the door. And these were kind of heavy as well. But it was kind of, on the other hand, it was easier because you had the frame. You had your canvas and you could do whatever you wanted there. So that was it. Yeah, I think that what was very challenging by the end was, even though that it looks super simple, but by the very end of the experience, you are motivated to go in front of the mirror to look at yourself and which should remind you that the story is about the people in Ukraine, but also about you. and we wanted to make it like that only the mirror stays in the frame and then everything else around you goes into white in a very slow fade in like fade out and this was what our designers were stuck for weeks you know i was like still seeing them how how it looks so easy guys it can't be true that you are stuck on this for three weeks already and something still was popping up as a problem and something was broken so that's the thing which you as a creator sometimes can't predict you come up with something which you think would be super easy and you have it in few days and then you find out that it's not like that so that's what I remember from the iterative process that it was one of the most challenging things
[00:28:36.877] Kent Bye: Yeah, I'm sure as the technology is still getting developed, it's like beta, alpha stages. Changes get pushed, it breaks things. So yeah, it's the cost of being on the bleeding edge of the technology that you have to be the free emotional labor doing the quality assurance and reporting bugs back. But the other part of the structure of the piece with the four different songs and outside of the installation, you have a translation of the different lyrics and there's different I'd say either keys or moods or vibes with each of the different songs that I think are evoking different emotions and I really appreciated how when you're going through the four different phases that you can go over and look at the photos that are documenting this family's lives to kind of see how life progresses as you go through and to see like the changes and then the return but each moment there's opportunities to have photos that were also reflecting in the past that is just i get another environmental storytelling technique to have another portal into the past but just through the normal photos that are there and so as you were coming up with the different four different chapters and there's you know the third chapter is like the climax where you see all the destruction from the war and then the The fourth is like the resilience and coming back to that. But the first two is setting up the initial context and you have a bit of a season change. So going from like summer to winter and, you know, there's four chapters. So I don't know if there was any sense of like the four seasons and how that is also kind of mirroring how time passes. So I'd love to hear some elaboration on deciding to go with this four-act structure of the piece.
[00:30:13.260] Ondrej Moravec: There was the idea to have like a four seasons like arc but then we chose the songs and the second song was already about the holy night you know so winter songs and the third one needed to be in winter as well you know because that was when the attacks started in 2022 so it kind of is not four seasons but the seasons are changing definitely somehow And yeah, I think that in terms of the environmental storytelling, which you mentioned, it was also kind of a tricky thing how to put the things together. Because as I said, we abandoned the one story, which will be told about some particular person. So it's more, you can find here a lot of things, which if you know the context, so they can ring a bell for you. And if you don't know them, doesn't matter, you just go on. So, for example, there is like the rooster from Borodianka, which is like a famous symbol ceramic, which survived the bombing in 2022 in Borodianka on the cupboard when all the buildings around were damaged and it became a symbol. Then we can see that on many, many things in Ukraine now that the Ukraine will prevail, you know, so it's kind of a more known story, even though a lot of people don't know it, of course. and then like a little smaller story for example with the tomatoes which are here all the time on the table even in the very damaged part of the experience and this is the story of one lady olena from kiev who in 2022 was attacked by the drone on her balcony and she took the jar of these tomatoes and threw it on the drone and it was knocked out by that you know so it became kind of a meme, kind of like a funny story of how even Ukrainian babushkas can go to fight against the Germans. So these little things are in the experience and you don't necessarily need to mention them. You can then find out the stories after in the little exhibition in the hall. For the standalone home experience we will have it in the credits somehow, incorporated. And then you have like the stories there of some concrete people. I chose a family, a Voloshenko family, who I met when I was in Ukraine to scout out, you know, for the stories. And this family lived in the one house nearby Kiev, which from the beginning of the war was, they left it before it was damaged. Then they found out that the Ukrainian army was hidden there and then the Russian army. So we wanted to include the fact that the people are not only losing houses, but they are actually then taken by the enemies. And, you know, you can see the mark Z here on the wall, you know, which is a mark of the enemy. You can find here that somebody really lived there and bivouacked there, you know. So it was first important to show this as well. And then the pictures on the walls are of this concrete family. I wanted to have a picture with them because that was a kind of, for me, embarrassing situation. Because when I came to them and I was talking to them, we had a really good vibe and they wanted all the time to make photos with me. and even in front of their ruined house and I was like, do you really want to make a photo in front of your ruined house? And they were like, yeah, of course we need to. And I don't know if I should smile or how should I, what should I do? But they were so happy, so happy from it.
[00:33:38.663] Kent Bye: Happy just to be documented? What do you mean? What were they happy about?
[00:33:41.306] Ondrej Moravec: happy that somebody is interested in their story. So I needed to include it there actually in the experience. And as you mentioned, the photos on the wall just continue in a way that at the beginning you can see just the garden parties or some nice time. Then there are photos from the demonstrations as the Maidan starts and then by the very end you can see how they start to rebuild everything and continue the new life. So they have a small arc in the pictures themselves here. The next little arc here is the story of a cat who is the main living creature with you in the experience. At the beginning she is resting, in the second chapter she is awaiting a danger out of the window. In the third part she disappears and in the fourth part I will not tell you what happened to her so you at least can look forward to something. But I just say that we are not cruel to animals, even to digital ones. So yeah, but I think that that was also important element to have there. Not only because I love cats, but also because the cats became a symbol of Ukrainian soldiers. They have them like in their names, you know, like of the units, you know, and so on. The soldiers are rescuing cats along, you know. So that was for me important to have it here. And also a lot of people have cats at home. Everybody here on the island is... I'm asking, what was the strongest point for you in all experience? And they say, you know, the cat, you know, because I could really relate to the cat. And to pet her, it was so nice, you know, and so comforting, you know, in all this, you know, the dramatic things which are happening around, you know. So I'm really glad for that, you know, because that was the purpose to have this calming element here, which, again, is creating the relation between you and the Ukrainian people, because we know we are having cats at home.
[00:35:32.290] Kent Bye: And throughout the course of the piece, is there any voiceover that are coming in? I feel like I remember some information. I don't know if I read it or saw it when there was the candle lighting sequence. Was there any narration in this piece at all? Or is it, I'm trying to remember.
[00:35:46.921] Ondrej Moravec: No, there is no narration in the piece itself. We just here in Venice do that at the beginning of the experience. You have a three minute audio. Oh, that's right. OK, so yeah.
[00:35:55.007] Kent Bye: So what was the audio? Because that's the first thing you hear. What was the, how do you onboard people?
[00:36:00.256] Ondrej Moravec: That's the audio which should kind of put you into the mood that you are, it's a beginning of an imaginative journey for you to go back to your home. So we are telling you to go around to see the window, what you see out of your window, to go to your table, how it looks like to your sofa, remembering some very nice time when you had a good relax on your sofa. on your sofa and to create this imaginative picture in your head lock it and then go into the headset and somehow combine it with what will happen in the headset so that we felt that it's important because it's really different experience when you experience it at home when we were developing it everybody of us was experiencing it in our homes And it's really strong, you know, when there's a window where you see your actual view, which you are familiar with, and then it changes to something totally different. So that's our main goal after some festivals, of course, which are nice for us to have and we are really happy from it. But we want to put it on store, online store as soon as possible, because we believe that the best way how to see it is at your home.
[00:37:13.479] Kent Bye: Yeah, I could definitely see that. And the mixed reality use, you're able to do the scan and then have mixed reality pass you for the first and second and then the fourth chapter. And then the third chapter, I feel like, is the chapter where it's the real turn, where you're completely immersed into a virtual environment. the home that you're in is destroyed in the sense that you have the devastation it's a moment of devastation but you're walking around and lighting the candles and the the song i just was so yeah i was just in tears for that whole chapter and i don't know if i heard through the video or it seemed to be some sort of song that would honor the soldiers or maybe just talk about the meaning behind that song and that it feels like a bit of a ritual that is happening in that feels like you're able to in the face of this devastation still find this moment of like honoring the spirits or having some sort of sacred practice that connected me at least to some sort of higher perspective of that moment even though the heart of it was complete devastation yeah
[00:38:21.471] Ondrej Moravec: This song which you talk about it's also for me the strongest and I think that for most of the Ukrainians. When we listen to it I cry all the time when I listen to it and my colleagues as well. It's a song which was the origin of it is in the First World War and it's a song about of a soldier who is going abroad to fight and her mom doesn't understand and he kind of calls for understanding Yeah, and this song became like main song during the Euromaidan in 2014. And then it's of course lived all the time, but then it started to be used as a burial song for the soldiers. Yeah. And you are In that moment you are experiencing the burial of the house, of all the memories which were hidden there. So yeah, it's unfortunate. Even for me, still.
[00:39:39.438] Kent Bye: Yeah, I think you mentioned something around that in the video around it. In the moment, though, I just felt like it was such a beautiful ritual to go through. And the thing that really also got me was in the final chapter when you see all the same food from before. And the pictures are hanging up. There's no dialogue or there's no... Yeah, just the way that you're able to tell that story of, like, resilience and able to kind of, like, life goes on and carry through. And yet another song that is equally kind of, like, beautiful. Yeah, I think the music is kind of, like, building me up to, like, this... It's taking me on this whole journey. And there's something around the cultural artifacts of, like, these are the rituals and the symbols and the practices and the art that... builds a culture and I feel like the way that you represented that in this piece in like a very poetic way without any explicit narrative like you said it's very simple but I just found it like incredibly moving and deep.
[00:40:51.345] Ondrej Moravec: Yeah, I'm really glad you're saying that because that was our purpose. And I was honestly very nervous because I didn't know if it will work on people. Because it was really like putting... Even my colleagues sometimes are saying, oh, aren't we too blurry? Are we really telling a story? And I was like, oh... I see it there, I hope we do. And when I'm here, so I'm super glad that I can see that it works. And when you spoke about the rituals, what happened here and what was very nice and kind of a thing which we didn't know, for example, that in the experience you can see that there is a plate which is turned around and there is a little lyrics written on it from the bottom. And that's actually what I found that it's a thing which you do when somebody passes away and they keep it there. for some time but we didn't know and we just found here you know and we're like what a good coincidence you know so yeah even these things are happening so I'm glad for them
[00:41:49.346] Kent Bye: But it sounds like that you're actually doing some photogrammetry scans of some of these cultural artifacts that you mentioned. Maybe it's worth bringing in, mentioning your collaborator on this piece who was not able to make it. But in the video, she's talking about cooking some of these traditional meals and then doing a photogrammetry scans. But yeah, maybe talk about your collaborator on this project and when she came on board to help develop this piece.
[00:42:10.987] Ondrej Moravec: Yeah, she came quite late, you know, at the beginning of this year when we started to, she jumped into the train which was already running, let's say, and she really gave a lot to the project and she was, yeah, as you say, and as she says in this video which we shared, you know, that she was living in Prague for three years It will be three years already. She arrived with her son when the war started. Father of the family already was in Prague before because of the work. And as she didn't, she wanted so much to share with us, like how the Ukrainians are living, but she was not much able because she didn't have all the stuffs with her, you know, she just, so she needed to show us the videos, pictures, you know. And then she said, oh, you know, with the food, I need to do it differently. I need to just cook it, and then we will do the photogrammetry of it. And I was like, yeah, that's a good approach. So we tried to do it with many things. For something, we didn't need that. For example, where we were creating all the ceramics, it's better to do it differently than with photogrammetry, because photogrammetry, it's nice, but very, in the technical way, it's quite difficult to optimize all the objects then. So we chose a different strategy. Yeah, so she was very much helping with this, with all the facts. I was always checking with her if what we are creating, if it's not somehow misleaded, you know, from the Ukrainian reality. We had also a special consultant for the script, you know, who is also Ukrainian. The choir master, she is also Ukrainian. And there was an interesting thing that the second song, Sad Holy Night, it's actually a carol. in Ukraine. Nowadays it's sung in carol, but we are using the original version of this song, which is from the beginning of the 20th century, where it was this kind of a sad song. So she said that that was for her also very interesting, you know, that to reveal this from her history, from the history of Ukraine, which she didn't know the origin of this song. So a lot of nice things were happening during the process as well. And yeah, I'm so sorry that she can't be here, Viktoria, here with us today, because she is struggling with her health a lot. It was her big dream to come, but unfortunately it was not possible. So we believe that for the next festivals she will be able to come and to enjoy all the things around.
[00:44:37.361] Kent Bye: So here at Venice Immersive 2024, you have two rooms and two installations that you're able to have people go in. It's the same experience, but just having two different spots for people to continue to see it. So what have been some of the reactions that you've received so far?
[00:44:51.937] Ondrej Moravec: Many reactions, you know, a lot of, yeah, most of them, they were mostly good ones. Very touching, I'm very happy from that. There was also one reaction from one guy which was unexpected because you always feel that when you are in this surrounding that you are in kind of a liberal bubble when you don't need to much think about some aspects or to explaining that the whole war which is happening is wrong, you know. But this guy was particularly, he came to me and he said Oh, you really believe all the things which are happening in Ukraine? I was like, yes, yes, I do. I was there. And he's like, uh-huh, okay, okay. But, you know, I believe that Russia deserves its greatness, you know. As a guy from Switzerland, I was like kind of an older guy, and I was like, Oh really? Am I having this conversation in Venice on an immersive island? So I was angry at him actually but on the other hand I was pleased that he came to see the experience. Maybe he will not change his mind right away but maybe it will give him a bit different point of view on all the thing and more such experiences could make a change which I hope that will happen.
[00:46:07.918] Kent Bye: I remember actually having a conversation with you in Austin where you said you're doing the VR version of it. And I was like, how does that work with ensuring there's integrity and the authenticity of... Because with VR, you can do anything. So I can understand theoretically around someone who would think, oh, it's just all... Fake news, it's all propaganda. You're creating this story. So I think there is a little bit of a concern around like as we cover these topics, how do you ensure the integrity of the story that's being told is actually got some tethered to dimensions of reality.
[00:46:41.621] Ondrej Moravec: yeah that's that was a very strong topic at the beginning and when we were creating the freshman which they look a lot of people are persuading us like you really have to have like a strong documentary material by the time i don't know why but probably there was some sense of that we need to prove that it was happening i don't know why but um like what's interesting that now when we are here nobody is asking for that because we know all the documentary horrible pictures already, you know, so and that's a nice on immersive storytelling that even though that they can really stick with the documentary aspect in the maximum they can also be more gentle regarding that and they can mix the things and it's still it's still very true and it gives you a different point of view and different experience how to live the reality so Yeah, so I'm really happy that we were able to create two projects, which each of them is very different. One is based on very documentary pictures and the second one which is using them as well, but it's more creative around the whole topic.
[00:47:53.581] Kent Bye: Great. And finally, what do you think the ultimate potential of this type of immersive storytelling and immersive art might be and what it might be able to enable?
[00:48:04.224] Ondrej Moravec: Well, I hope that people are already accepting it as like a new way of how to express stories. I'm always... My friends filmmakers are making jokes like that when we say that for example the VR is a empathy machine and so on. So I think it's not true of course, you know, the classic film can be also very full of empathy but it's about the way how you are experiencing it. And that's good, interesting, different, you know, and we should cherish it and the plurality of the ways how you can express something in art. So I feel that it's on a really, really good way. And yeah, especially with the mixed reality, I think that it will be something which will bring something very new and very powerful. Also because of the technical aspect that in mixed reality you feel much less nausea, you know, and like you don't have these bad feelings from all these things. So it's good and I believe that it will find its way.
[00:49:04.852] Kent Bye: Is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say to the broader immersive community?
[00:49:11.201] Ondrej Moravec: I think I don't have anything more to say just that I'm just going in two days back to Prague where we are premiering already our new next project which is immersive dancing experience about Anthropocene and about the fact that people are not able to breathe anymore. It's done together with two dancing studios. One is a Belgian one, Motion House, and one is Mesa, the Czech one. And we are bringing the immersive aspect into that. It will be kind of a big show. So I'm really curious on that. So hopefully about this piece you will hear some next time. It's called Six Degrees.
[00:49:55.549] Kent Bye: And your Amrissa festival that you're curating now, has the deadline already passed or when's the next edition of that?
[00:50:01.653] Ondrej Moravec: Yeah, the deadline passed, we already have the selection which we will announce by the end of September and the festival will run from 15th of October till 20th of October with three more weeks after for the selected projects which we will show in the gallery for the longer time.
[00:50:19.284] Kent Bye: And just one follow-on question on that. Can you just describe a little bit about your intention for what you wanted to do with having these pieces curated in the Czech Republic? Yeah, just kind of describe a little bit about the festival.
[00:50:31.894] Ondrej Moravec: Yeah, it's focusing on the, you know, immersive art, you know, and what we are trying to do a bit differently is to really offer the users the experiences for a longer time because limited number of headsets, you know, not everybody is all the time available. So we decided that part of the festival will last for months actually. The thematic section, which this year will be focused on women in XR. Our motto is beyond the glass ceiling because we believe that in immersive industries women can break the ceilings quite in an easier way than in a classic film industry. And there's also a lot of beautiful stories from the women's life which we want to show. So yeah, we are trying to have the thematic section always have some topic which we want to highlight, to have a conversation about that and so on and so on. And then we have a competition section which is like the best of the best things, you know, so yeah.
[00:51:29.082] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, Andre, thanks again for joining me here on the podcast. Fragile Home was one of my favorite experiences that I saw this year at Venice Immersive. I think the ways that you're developing the language and grammar of having different chapters and changing the environment and finding new ways to tell stories with space and time. I think it's just really a poetic and beautiful piece that you're able to put together and just really deeply moving. So yeah, thanks again for taking the time to help talk a little bit more about your process and the project that you're showing here. So thank you.
[00:51:59.931] Ondrej Moravec: Thank you very much and I'm really happy that you like the project. Thank you.
[00:52:03.442] Kent Bye: Thanks again for listening to these episodes from Venice Immersive 2024. And yeah, I am a crowdfunded independent journalist. And so if you enjoy this coverage and find it valuable, then please do consider joining my Patreon at patreon.com slash voices of VR. Thanks for listening.
