The VRChat worlds by DrMorro are truly incredible. They’re vast landscapes made of surreal mash-ups of various architecture styles and symbols that feels like you’re walking through a waking dream. His Organism Trilogy (Organism, Epilogue 1, and Epilogue 2) is a true masterpiece of VR worldbuilding. And his latest Ritual is one of the biggest and most impressive single worlds on VRChat that feels walking through a fever dream, and probably the closest thing to Meow Wolf’s style of immersive art. And his Raindance Immersive award-winning Olympia was his truly first vast world, and they’ve been getting bigger and bigger and more impressive ever since. He’s got a keen ear for sound design and a sound track that will help set the eerie mood of his sometimes unsettling and liminal worlds. In short, the experience of spending 4-5 hours going through one of DrMorro’s worlds is a completely unique and singular experience, as he’s in a class of his own when it comes to VRChat world building.
I have long wanted to conduct an interview with DrMorro doing a comprehensive retrospective of his works, but he’s an anonymous Russian artist who doesn’t speak English. He’s only done one other interview with Russian Del’Arte Magazine, but otherwise he’s a pretty mysterious and cryptic figure. I managed to got ahold of him through a mutual friend, and he suggested that we do a “19th-century-style written correspondence” where I would send questions over text chat over the course of a week. He would use an AI translator to translate what I said into Russian, and then he would then translate his Russian response back into English. For this podcast, I used the open source Boson AI Higgs Audio with Russian actor Yul Brynner’s voice to bring DrMorro’s personality to life, but the full transcript of our edited chat is down below if you prefer to read it as I had experienced it.
You can support DrMorro’s work through Boosty, and you can support the Voices of VR podcast through Patreon.
Kent Bye: Alright! Can you go ahead and introduce yourself and what you do in the realm of VR?
DrMorro: Hello! The name’s DrMorro – or well, that’s my alias, to be precise. That’s the name I’m known by as the creator of all those strange worlds in VRChat. For now, that’s my only real achievement in the VR sphere. Other than that, I’m a 2D and 3D artist, which is my main profession.
Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, this is my first interview that I’ve done via text. Can you give a bit more context for why you prefer to do the interview in this way?
DrMorro: Honestly, I’m a pretty closed-off person, and it’s easier for me to write than to talk. It’s just a character trait. Especially since I can’t even imagine communicating through a voice translator. When I write, I can at least somehow control the translation. I don’t know spoken English, but I manage fine in writing. So, no conspiracy theories. It’s just how I’m used to communicating. Though it’s strange because by nature, I’m a staunch introvert and I make worlds about total solitude. In ORGANISM, how many entities did you even find there besides the hat-wearing figure? And then suddenly, this popularity falls on me, and constant communication becomes the norm. Aaaahhh!
Kent Bye: Well, I very much appreciate you taking the time to do what you describe as a “19th-century-style written correspondence” with me over the next week or so. And it makes sense that you could have a little bit more control in how you can express yourself via written text through a translator.
Alight. So I always like to hear what type of design disciplines folks are bringing into VR, and so can you provide a bit more context about your background and journey into working with VR?
DrMorro: To put it briefly, my journey is that I essentially work in architectural visualization. But that’s more of a day job to keep myself afloat and pay the bills.
My main interest, of course, has always been computer games. Yeah, I’m from the era of cassette tapes for the ZX Spectrum and 3D Max running on DOS. For as long as I can remember, one of my biggest dreams has been to create my own games. However, a humanities-oriented mind has always been the main roadblock on that path. All those numbers and C++ would just stump me completely.
So I gradually mastered 3D graphics, but purely as a tool. In parallel, I painted traditional art—graphics and paintings. Over time, my graphics tablet replaced the canvas. And when VR technology arrived, I realized that this was exactly the tool that was missing from ‘static’ paintings. After that, it was a technical matter as I had to choose the most accessible gaming platform in terms of its SDK, and VRChat turned out to be a perfect fit for such goals.
I still view my worlds as paintings in which you can find yourself and wander. Yes, partly because of my style of storytelling and partly because of my technical illiteracy. All these programmable events, triggers, animations – this is definitely not for my mind.
Kent Bye: Ah! That makes sense that you would have at least some experience working with architecture, since your worlds have such an emphasis on vast spaces, and mashing up different architectural styles and contexts. How did you first encounter VRChat as a place to further develop your skills as a world builder?
DrMorro: VRChat was one of many free apps I instantly installed on my VR headset as soon as I got it. There were other social apps too, but VRChat just blew me away right from the start. There are so many people, minimal censorship, and complete freedom of action.
I ended up settling in a Russian-themed world called SLAV WORLD PADIK, and after getting to know its creator, I started slowly adding content to it. You can still find my graffiti on the walls there, made in the VR app “Kingspray,” along with a few avatars I made. After that, I started thinking about creating my own worlds from scratch.
Kent Bye: I would love to hear a little bit more about your design process for some of these epic worlds that you’ve been creating. Where do you typically begin with your world building process? Do you draw out a complete blueprint? Or do some concept art and painting? Do you build out one scene at a time, and then figure out how it all fits together? Do you start with a story or memory? I’d love to know where you begin.
DrMorro: Well, the process is different for every world. Sometimes there’s a clear concept from the start, other times it’s born along the way. But overall, it’s always pure chaos. And honestly, that’s what I love most about it.
The narrative unfolds in real-time; I literally live through it for a year, or however long it takes to build the world. Could I even handle such a project if it were all meticulously planned out upfront, leaving just the monotony of execution?
But here, everything is completely unpredictable. A tiny detail can spawn an entire new branch of the story. And that branch, connecting to previous locations in the most bizarre way, can change everything, forcing me to go back to the beginning to smooth out the narrative lines.
It’s genuine magic—to be present at the birth of something new. I’m like some kind of AI mashing up a cat and an orange, and it’s fantastic.
But I wouldn’t say the final world is a surprise to me. Of course, there are main storylines, thousands of scribbled sketches, and tons of new information gathered during development. So this is really one of those cases where the process is just as important as the result.
Kent Bye: A quick follow-up on the timing, I know that some festivals like Venice Immersive require World Premiere or International Premiere status in order to be in competition. And I know that the curators Liz and Michel would have happily had some of your prior work in the main competition at Venice. But publishing it on VRChat ahead of the festival does not meet either one of their premiere requirements. But it sounds like you were driven by your own creative process, and similar to Valve where “It’s done when it’s done” and not driven by deadlines or aspirations to compete. I’ve seen quite a lot of work at both Raindance Immersive and Venice Immersive, and I can say that your world building is on a level beyond anyone else I’ve seen so far. But it doesn’t seem like you’re motivated to prove that out beyond the accolades you’ve already received from Raindance Immersive, or subject yourself to strict deadlines or the “crunch” that most game developers typically face.
DrMorro: Yes, you’re absolutely right. This is that one zone where I don’t submit to any external rules. Usually, obligations tie your hands. Here, I only do what I want to do.
A commercial approach would probably have buried these projects in their infancy. As for festivals—to be honest, no one presented me with any demands; they just offered me a chance to participate. And that’s wonderful.
To be completely honest, I’ll add something else. It’s not even that important to me how viewers will interpret my worlds, whether I’ve provided enough clues, or if the path through them is straightforward. In this, I’m a total egoist, someone who was also raised on those old games where there was no hand-holding for the player whatsoever.
And this, by the way, has a fantastic side effect which is that some versions of the players’ experiences and interpretations are worthy of their own book. I know that entire communities have formed just to explore and research my worlds. That is what I was truly striving for.
Kent Bye: Because the process is so important to you, I’m curious to hear a little bit more about your 3D art technical pipeline, and process of iterating both inside and outside of VR. Do you prototype within VR art programs like Gravity Sketch or Tilt Brush / Open Brush? Or do you go straight to Blender or Maya, and then upload a first draft into Unity to see it in VR? Or use any other architectural software programs? Your worlds are so alive, and it feels like you must establish the sightlines for what you see in VR, and I’m just curious to hear a bit more about your iterative process in working with VR.
DrMorro: You know, a technical question might sound boring to most people. But to put it briefly, I assemble the scene in 3DS Max, piece by piece, location by location. As they’re ready, I import these separate blocks into Unity, where I can already walk through them roughly, check the scale, and so on. Then comes texturing, lighting, filling the scene with props and 2D art. Finally, there’s the placement of triggers, animations, and all that programming hell.
I actually put on the headset pretty rarely during this process. Because for me, seeing my “dreams” in full VR immersion is actually one of the personal end goals, and looking at unfinished pieces of the world is not much fun. So it’s always an exciting moment when I walk through a location in VR for the first time.
It feels like playing roulette. Will it match the vision or not? Sometimes I’ve had to redo entire sections just because, for example, I misjudged the sense of scale. But generally, I really don’t use the headset much during the testing phase.
Kent Bye: I wanted to clarify how you describe yourself as an “egoist” since I’m not sure if this is a mistranslation from automated translation. Or if you really do mean that you are someone who is prioritizing your own self-interest as a selfish, self-centered person. It sounds like you are using it in the context of being a gamer who enjoys open-ended worlds where you can freely explore according to your own self-determination, and figure things out on your own without explanation.
DrMorro: Well then, I suppose a bit of pathos is in order. “Egoist” might not be the best term, but in the end it means that I create all these worlds primarily to experience them myself and to draw certain impressions from them.
I try not to overthink how they will be perceived by others, and I deliberately avoid smoothing edges or trying to please. Perhaps that’s the very essence of creativity — being honest with oneself.
You always find yourself in the process of making a choice of either doing it “as it should be” or doing it “as they like.” So why don’t I make a standalone project instead? Well, bringing these worlds to life with real viewers is the second part of the vision. It’s necessary, and it gives them new life, branching out into new layers of meaning. And here, too, I’m an “egoist.”
Yes, this is my experiment, and it personally fascinates me as well.
Kent Bye: That makes complete sense. This is the last question for today as I’m going to revisit all of your worlds tonight. You mentioned how you’re “like some kind of AI mashing up a cat and an orange,” and I noticed that you were adding what looks like it was some generative AI posters and art within ORGANISM, which was on the cutting edge back in May 2022. Do you use generative AI within your worldbuilding workflows at all for concept art since you seem to be consistently mashing together different styles and perverting our expectations? I know there are a lot of strong opinions on AI in the art world, but it seems like you’ve at least been using it to add some additional flair to your worlds. But I’m just curious if you use generative AI in your worldbuilding creative workflows, or just to emphasize a feeling during the texturing phase.
DrMorro: You know, here’s a little hint. The ORGANISM trilogy is actually about AI. But what it mixes isn’t just images. Yes, I often compare the human creative process to how AI works. Throughout your life, you load yourself with countless references from everything around you. And then your own unique, abstract algorithm which is not anything transcendent. It is just the work of our overly complex brain that mixes them up and produces a piece of art.
Perhaps the breadth and depth of this algorithm determine a person’s talent or even their degree of madness. Since most of these processes are subconscious, the result can be unexpected.
By the way, I’d also consider the ability to predict the outcome as a kind of measure of a person’s talent. (Actually, the very term “talent” is questionable too—but let’s not dive into that rabbit hole.)
Sorry, I got sidetracked. Regarding AI and worldbuilding, I never use AI to create concepts, narratives, nor any foundational elements. I happily use AI purely for decoration like when I need to create stylistic posters, illustrations, and other details. The kind of work that would take me another lifetime to do manually. In that sense, AI greatly simplifies the workflow.
Kent Bye: After the pause in our conversation, I spent over 6 hours going through all ten of your VRChat Worlds in order to get a better understanding of your creative journey here on VRChat. It’s such an awe-inspiring body of work, and it’s rare to be able to cultivate a sense of true exploration and discovery, even after I’ve already seen the ORGANISM trilogy and RITUAL.
I also chatted with VRChat power user Tokkio who wanted me to tell you how beloved you are amongst the world builders and some of the most enthusiastic VRChat users. He said that many of his friends measure their time on the platform by when your new worlds drop, and they will stop everything else that they’re doing and give their full attention to exploring your latest creations.
Fins also gave me a comprehensive 3.5-hour tour of RITUAL ahead of Venice Immersive after he had spent many sessions exhaustively exploring your world. I decided to do another accelerated run-through of RITUAL last night in order to better understand it within the context of your whole body of work.
So I have lots of thoughts, and I’d love to chronologically go through your worlds to ask more about your design intentions and inspirations, but also share some of my impressions and things that I noticed after experiencing your complete body of work.
Before you started uploading worlds, you mentioned that you made some avatars, which I found in the SLAV WORLD PADIK world. I noticed some of your graffiti art in your MOSCOW TRIP 2002 – NIGHT TRAM world, and I went into SLAV WORLD PADIK to check out some of your early graffiti made in KingSpray VR. This is where I also found the 11 avatars uploaded under a previous alias over a three-month period from 28th of February 2018 to 31st of May 2018. There were lots of avatar memes going around in early 2018. Can you talk about the SLAV WORLD PADIK world, and what inspired you to start creating avatars?
DrMorro: Yeah, those are my avatars from back when I wasn’t DrMorro yet. And Padik is kind of a meme world where all the stereotypes of Slavic worlds are gathered such as rundown entryways, hoodrats, concrete high-rises, etc. Where else would a Russian newbie go?
You type “Rus” in the search bar, and of course end up clicking on Padik. Unfortunately, that world is pretty much dead now. And the Russian community has moved to “Pyaterochka,” which is a common Russian supermarket chain. It’s a worthy successor, and the guys there are really serious about maintaining that world. Big shoutout to them! (By the way, they recently put up a monument to a pigeon wearing a hat… hmmmmmm.)
As far as the avatars? Well, of course, these are the main memes when someone talks about the Slavic world. Plus some childhood memories like Beavis and Butthead. Yes, in the 90s, they started showing MTV, and it was a hit among teenagers. In the end, we had a great laugh with these avatars. It was fun.
I want to give credit to the people who spend hours in my worlds, which honestly is quite the psychological experiment. I’m even a little worried for them. In any case, hats off to them, it’s almost a feat.
But anticipating your question about what inspires me, I’ll share a general thought that connects all the worlds. Actually, forget just the worlds, I think the theme for all artists, writers, musicians, etc., is exclusively their own life and personal experience. Humans have nothing else to talk about.
Even if a writer has a highly developed imagination and writes some completely strange fantasy, then it’s still their past experience just expressed through different symbols. It’s the same for me.
Essentially, all my worlds are a reflection of what has surrounded me throughout my life from my home, my body, my city, my friends, etc. All these bizarre forms and meanings are just a mix of “a cat and an orange.” But the cat and the orange are right here, right now.
Yes, I take the mundane landscape outside my window and make it not boring. I stretch these panel high-rises, concrete fences, autumn alleys, and everything else into bizarre shapes. And the next time I see or pass by them, they remind me of my worlds, and I slip into a parallel universe.
My hometown and most beloved city of Moscow, which is where I’ve lived my entire life, deserves special mention. It’s so alive and diverse that I tried to create a series of worlds with walks through it in different eras including 2002 and an alternative version of 1952. And even with ORGANISM and EPILOGUES #1 & #2, it’s all Moscow.
But as it’s reflected in my troubled mind, through the emotions this city has gifted me year after year, transforming alongside me. All my worlds are my memoirs. Yeah, damn… that’s old age.
Kent Bye: What a beautiful reflection to wake up to. I will not normally send questions in the middle of my night and your work day, but thanks for insights into your high-level inspiration. We’ll be getting into the evolution of your worlds, but before we do I did want to comment on how you started with Russian memes, and then a couple of experimental worlds under a previous alias until settling into what would become the distinctive style of DrMorro.
In a previous interview with Del’Arte Magazine, you talk about how “When I put on a VR helmet for the first time, I realized: this is the “canvas” of my dreams.” And then you say, “My virtual world is a multi-faceted decoration that develops in time and space, with many levers of influence on the viewer: artistic or semantic images, the language of space and architecture, surrounding sounds and music.” I can see the fusion of all of these elements develop in your work, but I’m curious if you’d be willing to share a bit more about how your dreams have influenced your work. Are some of your worlds coming directly from your literal dreams at night? Or are you talking about how VR as a medium fulfills your deepest aspirations to express your creative imagination as an artist?
DrMorro: Haha! Looks like it’s just a translation nuance, since “dream” as aspiration and “dream” as in sleep sound the same in Russian. So it’s easier to say that VR is the canvas I’ve always dreamed of.
But strangely enough, your question hit the mark because I really do try to design the narratives in my worlds as if the viewer is inside a dream.
Yes, I attempt to capture that very feeling and convey it through visuals and soundscapes.
So if EPILOGUE 1 is like a light, afternoon nap about childhood, then RITUAL is a heavy, feverish dream with delirium and high temperature.
By the way, we can learn from dreams and understand how our creative thinking works, our personal AI, which bizarrely mixes our folders with information while we sleep.
Kent Bye: Nice. Yeah, there is certainly a dream-like quality to your work where I feel like I’m walking into your dreams. And we may or may not get into the symbols and various meanings. I find in working with dreams as a practice — as well as for using symbols to communicate with the medium of VR — that there are three levels of symbols. 1.) Universal symbols that need no further explanation. 2.) Symbols that are culturally specific to a region or culture. 3.) And then symbols that have a very specific meaning for an individual that often need to be decoded in order to understand how it relates to that person.
I find that your work uses symbols across all three of these layers, which I think allows for people to find their own meaning in the work. So as we proceed, I’d love to hear as much as you are willing to share about each layer of symbols or intention while also recognizing the danger of having a single, canonical interpretation that is personal to you.
I’m curious to hear any reflections on that as we start to seriously dive into your work. In other words, potential spoilers ahead. Proceed with caution.
DrMorro: Yes, symbols are the language of my worlds. You’re absolutely right about that. And you correctly noted that there are recognizable symbols carrying their corresponding semantic load.
Since you mentioned my previous interview, then allow me to borrow some takeaways from it. Take the Epilogues, for example, the first chapter is more about childhood and youth where its symbol is a moth that is small and amorphous, drawn to light, and short-lived.
Then the second chapter is about an adult, which is represented by a pigeon. A creature that truly owns the city. Like from the song, pigeons are gray and dirty, they eat from garbage bins, and drink from puddles. But they still know how to fly.
I want to make an important clarification that my worlds can be experienced outside the context of symbols, and I intentionally designed them that way. In that case, it’s just a journey through strange and crazy locations.
But if someone wants to dive deeper, then yes, then they’ll need to decipher my language of symbols. By the way, colors are almost always a key, too.
But my latest world RITUAL is completely different. You won’t be able to subconsciously decode its symbolism. I turned it into an alchemical treatise where “tin” and “lead” conceal entirely different entities—often spiritual ones.
Yes, you definitely need prior knowledge in other fields to grasp it. And on top of that, you have to break through this world of schizophrenia, where everything only makes sense to the schizophrenic himself. I’m sure this world will remain unsolved. Yet, everything in it is in its right place as there are no random elements.
So that you understand about the RITUAL, I’ll just give you one example with a hint. For example, “noodles” are thoughts. And then all these cucumbers and the rest won’t seem so absurd.
Kent Bye: Brilliant! I have a couple of brief reflections on symbols before we proceed into your first world. I went through all three chapters of ORGANISM after you told me that you were thinking about AI when making that series. I see AI as a technology that can consolidate wealth and power, and so I was really noticing the dynamics of power that are being symbolically explored through architecture. AI is such a complicated and nuanced topic in our lives that has many associations and meanings, but I think the value of symbolic and abstract art when done well is that we can find our own threads of meaning and interpretations as we go through it. And I believe your work has reached that level where it is open-ended enough for people to still find their own interpretations and relations regardless of your original intentions.
But also, part of what I have been doing with The Voices of VR podcast oral history project for the past 11 years is trying to understand the affordances of VR as well as the underlying grammar of VR as a communications medium. Part of the process for me has been to better understand the original intentions of a VR creator, and then to pay attention to my own sensory, mental, emotional, and behavioral experiences of a piece, and then see how big the gap is between what the creator originally intended and what my own experience was.
So I’d be curious to hear any other reflections on this as we prepare to go back to where your worldbuilding journey on VRChat all began.
DrMorro: I think that I roughly understood your message, and I’m sorry if not entirely accurately. However, I’ll note one nuance that usually trips everyone up, which is that people think the author is some kind of perfect genius who meticulously planned every detail of their work, where every stone in a location carries some profound meaning. But damn, I’m so far from that kind of perfectionism.
For the most part, the work develops on its own, completely uncontrollably. Sometimes I reproduce something almost like an inside joke. Sometimes I intentionally mess around and confuse things. In the end, what emerges is something entirely independent, and something that I myself spend a long time examining and deciphering.
In that sense, I’m a very bad writer. A good writer is one who holds their thoughts tightly, not the other way around. But the element of surprise is also a bonus for me.
If only you knew how hard it is to enter your own world when you’ve seen every corner of it in Unity. And then, amazingly, the world starts living by its own rules—and that same vortex pulls me in just as strongly as it does a newcomer.
Oh, sorry! I missed your passage about ORGANISM and AI. Here’s another hint: Scattered throughout the Epilogues are various books. One of them is Stanisław Lem’s “Solaris.” His book speaks directly to the question of how would an intelligence operate with concepts of “mind” that it encounters for the first time? And what if it encounters them in the form of thoughts, which are abstract in themselves? Yeah, exactly! This is what the entire trilogy is about.
Kent Bye: Great. Well that seems like a good place to pause for the moment. I’ll return tomorrow morning where we can dive into your first world. Thanks!
DrMorro: Agreed! Have a nice day! Oh! Sorry! One last reaction to your paragraph about expanding meanings. I agree, but I wouldn’t single out VR as something particularly special. My RITUAL pales in comparison to, say, Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings in terms of symbolic depth.
That said, VR does offer qualitatively different impressions. And that’s a kind of vertical evolution. Let’s see where it leads. Now I’m really signing off until tomorrow!
Kent Bye: Good evening! Let’s go back to the 9th of November 2018. You publish LAST HOPE WATCHTOWER to VRChat. It feels like a mashup of the mundane, repetitive Russian architecture and apartment buildings in Moscow with more exotic, supernatural, and mystical Egyptian tomb and statues. Along with a rooftop bar, an eerie black hole, and an interactive light and beer bottles. Can you take me back to the beginning of your world building journey where you start to mix the ordinary with extraordinary?
DrMorro: Good morning! Sorry, I have to make a remark—and it might break your follow-up questions—but this is my principle. Usually, I create a world and do my best to convey my thoughts within it. After that, I prefer not to discuss the plot or why I made certain choices. This is primarily for the player’s own benefit.
I don’t want to ruin their enjoyment of unraveling the mysteries and meanings. And those who aren’t captivated by my worlds, then they can just quickly run through them, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
So let’s discuss the worlds without getting into specific plot details.
Your question is a good one—mixing the familiar with the extraordinary. That’s what I think drives all of us. We’re always dreaming, aren’t we? Isn’t it so relatable?
How many times has a person living in a concrete ant hill, breathing smog every morning, opened their bathroom door dreaming to see a sea and yellow sand behind it?
But I have a VR canvas—hooray! What would my city look like without people, after some global catastrophe? Let’s add aliens, pyramids, and basically the whole repertoire of yellow press and cheap sci-fi. Why not? It’s so charming. Think back: What books or games did you grow up with? And what did you dream about? Did you ever want to find yourself in your own universe?
Kent Bye: For me, being born in 1976, Star Wars as well as G.I. Joe action figures were portals into my imagination. So I didn’t have any trouble escaping into other worlds. For me, Saturday morning cartoons built out so many different worlds that I would continue to explore with lots of different toys.
And I’ll try to share my own thoughts, impressions, and emotions of your worlds to not dig too deeply into things you would prefer not to share.
DrMorro: A good example with Star Wars! I remember when my friend’s parents bought their first VCR, we skipped all of our classes and watched these films until they were worn out. And then we played in the vacant lot, imagining that the sticks in our hands were light swords. Almost all my worlds are these “wooden light swords.” A dream that is superimposed on the existing reality. And nothing more.
Kent Bye: What was surprising to me about your next world of CHANGO BAY VER1.6 was how it was tonally upbeat and cheery relative to your other worlds. The music also had a lot to do with it, and music and sound design seems to be a key part of your world building process. It felt like taking a trip to a beach town, and I found myself wanting to get to places like the hot air balloon or to take a trip out to the active volcano. And then the person I was with reminded me of the teleport buttons at the spawn point. So I could ride in the hot air balloon or quickly visit the volcano. I know you have credited the VRCPrefabs in your worlds, and I could see how the aircraft ride here fed into the bird ride in OLYMPIA. So this world felt like a place to be explored, which is a thread that I see that you continue to expand upon.
DrMorro: Yes, this is exactly what I mentioned in the previous paragraph. When you open the bathroom door, and step from wintery Moscow into a warm seaside. For us northerners, the sea has always been something sacred. All Soviet people saved money all year just for a vacation by the sea. It’s like another planet—a place people dreamed of and solemnly traveled to with their entire families.
Maybe that’s where OLYMPIA came from (as I anticipate your next question). Unfortunately, due to outdated triggers, this world is broken now. But when it worked, then you could “wake up” in my actual room through a secret cave behind the waterfall. Outside the window, a snowy Moscow courtyard, and on the walls, memorabilia photos from seaside trips.
Why is OLYMPIA so massive? Well, that’s my biggest flaw as a creator. I’m not good with small forms. If I were a writer, I’d write novels, not poetry. Writing poetry is much harder. It’s the same here.
I made the sea, okay? But if there’s a sea, why not add ruins? And if there are ruins, then they must have a history. History… hmmmm… And off we go, sprawling across hectares of locations.
Every time I tell myself, “This time I’ll make a small, cozy world.” And every time, the world ends up bigger than the last. As we say, “Brevity is the sister of talent.” Guess I’m an only child in that family.
Kent Bye: Yeah, before digging into OLYMPIA a bit more, you have a couple of other worlds that I consider to be a bit more of a “documentary” phase that seem to be like a personal memoir of Moscow in 2002 with lots of reference photos within MOSCOW TRIP 2002 – NIGHT TRAM. Probably the most exploration of interactive elements, which you don’t explore as much in subsequent works. Even a 360-degree photo sphere. You display your graffiti work, and even a couple of secret and somewhat hidden rooms where you display your paintings. And riding on a tram is also a liminal space of moving from one place to another, but you are centering that liminal experience. So this world felt like a deep dive into the mundane and real, but in a way that also felt like the capturing of a moment in time. And a complete soundtrack to explore as well that helped transport me to another place.
DrMorro: Yes, exactly. It’s completely a documentary world, just like all the others. I’ll say it again, everything I possess and work with is just a reflection of what I’ve lived through and what surrounds me.
Alas, that in itself is pretty boring when it comes to creative origins, inspiration, and other rather abstract terms.
But we’re always juggling our experiences, and we don’t have any other balls in our hands. It’s simply a desire to share emotions and impressions.
If I didn’t know how to build worlds, then I’d probably just tell stories in a creaky, monotone voice: “Well, back in my day… khe khe.” And that would definitely be super boring and exhausting. But here, I keep the audience engaged with all sorts of visual tricks.
Kent Bye: Right. That makes sense. So MOSCOW TRIP 1952 – RIVER TRAM feels like a love letter to vast Soviet / Russian architecture. I really get the sense of scope and scale in this world. Also imagining the life of an artist of this era. Also, the quality and level of fidelity and texturing seemed to also take a jump. But curious to hear any thoughts on this time travel trip to another era.
DrMorro: Yes, Moscow is a kind of architectural Babylon. Here, numerous styles mix and blend into one another, transitioning seamlessly. A Stalinist Empire style particularly shapes modern Moscow’s identity—the Seven Sisters skyscrapers, the embankments, the Garden Ring—these are its signature landmarks.
I constantly move from district to district, each with its own mood dictated by the surroundings.
And I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t introduce some “alternative” history. For instance, the unbuilt Palace of the Soviets, which would have been the tallest building in Europe according to the original plan. I really wanted to see it, and VR gave me that opportunity.
Plus, I always try to include a small historical dive so the viewer can fully immerse themselves in the era. For example, you can find a gallery with traditional Soviet Art paintings, an authentic courtyard, and a few other iconic spots there.
Kent Bye: Oh okay. That makes sense. I didn’t realize that there was some alternative history in there with the Palace of the Soviets. I actually tried to search online for Moscow statues and monuments to see if it came up, and I did not see it. I attributed it to my own lack of knowledge for what to search for, and I was surprised that I never had seen it before, but that makes sense that this massive and impressive building was never actually built. The world felt so seamless, and so I didn’t notice the twist. But the boat ride was a really great way to explore all of this vast architecture.
[At this point, DrMorro shared some photos in the chat of the speculative designs of the Palace of the Soviets, and what is actually there].
DrMorro: Now in its place is the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Before the war, it was demolished just for the construction of the Palace of Soviets. Then there was only a foundation, from which the Moscow swimming pool was made. And then the Cathedral was restored again.
Kent Bye: Oh still very beautiful, but certainly not as spectacular. I can see why you would want to see it in VR from the perspective of the Moskva River.
DrMorro: The pool is on the foundation site. You can appreciate the scale.
Kent Bye: Wow! Those people look like ants!
DrMorro: Yes, I swam there when I was very little. In winter you emerge, and are immediately covered in icicles. And then there’s that smell of chlorine.
Kent Bye: Okay. Now we move on to OLYMPIA, which was my introduction to your work. I was actually on the jury for Raindance 2021 for Best Immersive World, and I remember being so completely blown away for how vast of a world that you had created here. It really stood out to the jury as being something both different and special in terms of all of the places to discover.
It gave me a unique feeling of exploration and discovery that is not easy to cultivate.
And in looking back on the evolution of your worlds, this feels like the first time where you really leaned into more of the fantasy genre or worlds from your imagination. I sensed some Greek architecture influences, but also fantasy and a bit of otherworldly, sci-fi with glowing mushrooms and the mother tree. But it also felt like a place with a history and lore to be discovered.
And then a month after release, then you did a night version [OLYMPIA NIGHTS] which seemed to be a meditation on baked lighting and creating new moods, vibes, and emotions through lighting, which I can see is something that continued to develop in your work.
DrMorro: Yes, indeed. I started experimenting with scale in OLYMPIA. It’s one of those cases where you always want to add something more. But since everything is placed in a single “bubble” location, I likely stumbled upon the volume of geometry where performance already begins to drop. However, even that turned out to be enough for a large, full-fledged world.
As for the fantasy aspect, here I’ll object a bit again. Yes, yes—it’s the same Moscow, the same familiar places. But of course, altered and blended specifically with Mediterranean motifs. (There was a period when I managed to travel a bit through Greece, Spain, etc.)
Look, for example, at Moscow State University, which is near where I live and have the pleasure of constantly walking along its endless alleys. Doesn’t it remind you of something? So, here too, are pictures of a cat mixed with an orange.
Kent Bye: [DrMorro shared a couple of pictures of the vast architecture of the Main Building at Moscow State University as well as the Greek architecture influences within the Three-Hall Building at Moscow State University that inspired a wide range of different types of buildings that he featured in OLYMPIA]
Oh wow! Yeah, I admit that I’m woefully ignorant of the broad range of architectural styles and influences there in Moscow, Russia. My experience of the world was such an otherworldly type of experience, but I can see the traces and influences of the buildings that you’re surrounded by.
Your homeland of Moscow and Russia and own life experiences seem to be a primary influence throughout all of your work. But I’m wondering if you’d be willing to name any other key influences or inspirations ranging from other artists, VR creators, films, books, musicians, etc.
DrMorro: Oh, you’ve really taken me seriously now! Honestly, this topic deserves another full interview. Okay, I’ll try to keep it brief. I leave all the clues in my worlds including books, movie posters, TV shows, music, and so on. Everything that resonated with me and shaped me. After all, we’ve all read more or less the same books, watched the same films, etc.
But there are a few key points that I’ll highlight. First, the early PC quests from the era of 286 computers. We were just kids back then, but what an impression they made on me! I’m talking about Sierra games like Space Quest, King’s Quest, and others. We spent days playing them with an English dictionary in hand. It was something new after movies, which were these interactive stories that you could control. And the graphics were left to our childhood imaginations to fill in.
By the way, I’m fundamentally not a fan of photorealistic graphics with a million details and props. Firstly, this visual junk overloads the perception and leaves no room for imagination and speculation, and it also detracts from the main focus. In this regard, a book is ideal when you reproduce what you read in your head as images. But now we’ve stopped reading a lot and training our imaginations, and in modern games everything is served to you ready-made where you just press the buttons.
Then, I also remember Russian quests from the ’90s. I still replay some of the old ones with pleasure. Later, of course, came full-fledged games like The Elder Scrolls, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and so on. It’s an endless topic.
As for something newer that really grabbed me, I can’t even recall anything. Either I’m getting old, or “the market has decided.”
The last truly impactful game, which definitely inspired me to create my worlds, was Dear Esther. With the VR plugin, it became my unparalleled benchmark for how a story should be told. And the recently released Disco Elysium is undoubtedly a masterpiece, although its aesthetics are increasingly reminiscent of good old quests, but with completely unique mechanics.
The second turning point, already in my youth, was the Moscow Museum of Cinema. We went there almost daily. Tickets cost pennies, and it was always a stop between university and evening bars. There, I rewatched most of the classic films of the 20th Century.
Honestly, at the time, I understood little, but the foundation was laid for perceiving complex, intricate works. This also needs to be trained, as with classical music. I call it “pleasure through pain.” In order to understand all the great harmonies, you must form certain blocks in your perception. And to do this, you’ll have to try.
As far as books go, we read a lot of everything from sci-fi to absolute trash. But what truly shifted my perspective was post-modern writers. Maybe it’s because that period in my creative journey coincided with my active youth. I saw what was happening around me, and absorbed how other creators reflected on it. It was just a kind of imprint. Apparently, it resonated deeply. And writers like Viktor Pelevin are a lifelong love.
As far as music or painting—it’s all the same. For a long time, we swam in the underground with nonconformists of the ’70s–’90s, all that depressive rock. What else was there to listen to or watch?
But now, I’m increasingly drawn to classical works or books. I guess the time has come.
By the way, I also met a lot of interesting people in my worlds. For example, the talented writer Alex Beyman. His book plots are just ready-made worlds for me. I recommend him. (And by the way, he is one of your fellow countryman from Portland, Oregon).
He actually writes in that genre I love so much, which is Howard Lovecraft’s style of “cosmic horror,” where fear of the unknown and the incomprehensible is emphasized more than fear of blood or other typical horror elements. His book plots are also just ready-made worlds for me.
I also want to pay my respects to other VR creators I’ve met and whose work has inspired me. For example Fins, his worlds set an unreachable bar for technical execution and artistry. Karl Kroenen, his worlds make you think and became a starting point for me as well.
My connections with some remarkable people have even transitioned into real life. There are so many other VR creators, VR photographers, the organizers who got me to festivals and more. I don’t want to offend anyone by not naming them here, but I remember and thank you all.
Okay, now back to other sources of inspiration. If you need specifics, then here’s my personal hit parade. These are my top 5 books and films. Of course, I could list a top 100 as there’s so much, but I’ll highlight what best fits the atmosphere of my worlds.
My Top Books:
- Any of Viktor Pelevin’s books, but his latest series “Transhumanism Inc.” is pure VRChat material. Although, I prefer his earlier works like “The Life of Insects.”
- Andrei Platonov’s “The Foundation Pit” has a lot of unique language, although sadly it’s likely hard to grasp for English-speaking audiences.
- Absurdist writers like Franz Kafka, Daniil Kharms, Albert Camus, and Boris Vian.
- Vladimir Sorokin’s early short stories like “Ice” and “Hearts of Four” have the same absurdity, but with a striking ’90s Russian atmosphere.
- Classic Sci-Fi of Stanisław Lem, the Strugatsky brothers, etc.
My Top Films or Directors:
- Andrei Tarkovsky is my number one with “Stalker” and “Mirror”.
- Ingmar Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal” and “Wild Strawberries.”
- Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” and “Tideland”.
- David Cronenberg’s “Naked Lunch” and “eXistenZ.”
- Arthouse Cinema from the 1980s to 2000s that is mostly Russian like “The Needle,” “Dust,” “Cargo 200,” “ASSA,” “Moscow, *4*,” “Playing the Victim,” “Petrov’s Flu,” etc.
Honestly, I’m not even sure if it’s worth dwelling on this so much. Most visitors to my worlds are young people. All this black-and-white “junk” would probably be utterly boring to them—just like how I’m completely clueless about modern culture.
It suddenly hit me that I can’t name a single contemporary actor or artist, haha. And when someone suggests I watch anime, my eyes just glaze over involuntarily.
Kent Bye: Yeah, and for what it is worth, this is all really fascinating to me, and I know will be of interest to many others. Just as you have listed your inspirations, your work is an inspiration to me and many others. And so these influences are a part of an ancestral lineage for your work. So thanks for sharing some of your own inspirations.
Okay! We have arrived at ORGANISM, [EPILOGUE #1, & EPILOGUE #2] which the trilogy remains a unique contribution to how VR as a medium can use architecture and world building as a form of symbolic storytelling and environmental storytelling. But overall, it gives me a sense of true adventure and exploration, and the feeling of getting lost. It turns out that getting lost is not an easy feat to achieve, but your winding and overlapping structure of this trilogy invites people to explore, to be curious, and to be open to getting lost.
Coming from OLYMPIA, which is an exploration of open space and scale, I can really feel the contrasts and opposites being explored in this work. From exploring insides versus the outsides, and then the mundane versus the surreal. There are so many awe-inspiring moments contrasted to liminal and in-between spaces, but consistently you manage to transcend my expectations as to what will happen next. And then always ending with climbing towards these otherworldly and transcendent endings that really culminates the experience.
I know you are hesitant to dig into too many specifics, but I would be curious to hear any reflections on your epic trilogy that breaks so much ground in so many ways.
DrMorro: Well, I suppose I’ve already spilled all the spoilers above. In broad terms, it’s a reflection on how the non-living transitions into the living, how memory is born, how the creative act works, and what happens if a Mind operates with meanings it has never encountered before—only lightly brushing against them in someone else’s memory. Who are we? Are we just like AI, or something greater? Where does information go? And who controls it? And so on.
But honestly, it’s also a pretty cozy place. If all these lofty narratives feel too complicated, you can always just grab a couple bottles of “Purple” somewhere in “The Dream.” Just make sure not to get soaked and catch the last train!
Damn – I almost forgot the most important thing. The trilogy is about how to properly cross a cat and an orange. Or a moth with a dove.
Kent Bye: As I went through this trilogy again, I noticed the motif of rain that shows up again and again, which I think hits differently immersed in VR than in other mediums. I know Fins has talked to me about creating a rain world, which sort of went viral with different VRChat worlds and world builders. Did you ever come across any of these rain worlds? And I’m just curious to hear how you use weather within your worlds.
DrMorro: Weather is just a lever that affects everyone more or less equally. It is a tool for creating a certain mood. I think that for any work to be successful, emotions must be touched upon. They are like a target, and the strongest link to perception.
That’s why you can use all sorts of “levers,” even if they’re not straightforward in nature. Although, rain can be light and cozy when it creates white noise, hitting the roof and you quietly fall asleep in your chair. Or a heavy downpour when you walk home at night, you have no umbrella, and you are already wet. So you are in no hurry. All these are just certain notes, keys on the piano.
Plus, purely technically, when you do not know how to make animation, rain is a great tool to add dynamics to the world.
My purely technical opinion is that the world should not be static anywhere, it should always provide for the workload of all our organs of perception — so that it would be a continuous array of impressions without pauses. Then it works. Well, there are many tools for this.
Kent Bye: Can you talk about your decision to add an audio checkpoint system? As you are exploring these vast worlds, you’ll sometimes hear an audio cue of something dropping or clicking. And this seems to help indicate to the user that they are on the right path of progress. There are so many opportunities to go around in circles and get lost, and I find that these cues help me find my way.
You emphasize that there are no puzzles to solve, but sometimes navigating these worlds can turn into a puzzle of a spatial journey. And it also feels like a video game influence, even if there is not any explicit puzzles or gameplay. But we start to see these audio cues and checkpoint teleportation systems start to show up to help navigate these vast worlds.
DrMorro: Well, yes, some are just beacons for the player, and others are a system of triggers that are triggered by a sound event. In RITUAL, I use the sounds of awakening, inhalation. They call the plot move, and have some meaning.
Kent Bye: Gotcha. And your worlds are also filled with a rich sound design and music that is also triggered based upon where you are at. It ends up creating a whole auditory journey that also sets the mood and emotion, which can lean towards melancholy or a general unsettledness.
Can you talk about your process of sound design and the curation of the soundtrack to pair with your worlds?
DrMorro: Sound shouldn’t be considered in isolation here. My goal is to create a specific mood using every available means. Honestly, I think the strongest trigger for our memories, emotions, and imagery is smell, which isn’t available in VR yet. Then comes sound, and finally visuals.
So yes, sound design makes up 50 percent of my world. For me, it’s the most interesting part. Sometimes I listen to hundreds of tracks, and discover many new artists along the way. In general, the entire process of building a world is fascinating because I absorb massive amounts of new information across various topics—and that’s truly valuable to me.
Kent Bye: There have been more and more location-based experiences that have been playing with taste and smell, and I agree that these are the most powerful memory-triggers. One experience at Venice in 2019 even had people dedicated to holding up sticks to VR audience’s noses with different smells as a way of “editing” smell. But yeah, I can really feel the full sensory experience of your worlds.
One more technical question before moving onto RITUAL. Optimization seems to be a huge part of your process as you manage to fit an incredible amount of content into a VRChat world. It is probably one of the least sexy aspects of your work, but it is such a vital part of how you’re able to fit so much content into such a small space.
Can you talk about the optimization process as a part of your creative practice?
DrMorro: Oh, there’s nothing too complicated here. Thanks to the kind folks who helped me learn Unity, and all those YouTube tutorials. With such massive worlds, there’s no other way than to have static lighting, baked lighting, baked occlusions. The three pillars, as they say. And, of course, careful texture compression, and packing them into unified atlases, even if it means some quality loss.
Kent Bye: One final reflection of the ORGANISM trilogy before moving on is that I really feel like this is a true masterpiece of VR world building. I feel like it is such a groundbreaking piece of work, and I’m curious, what are you the most proud of from a creative perspective?
DrMorro: Each world is dear to me in its own way. I simply can’t single out just one. The only thing I’m truly proud of about myself is that I somehow found the strength to see all these worlds through to the end where I would spend half a year or even a full year on each. So purely in terms of physical endurance. Yes, really. (Well, if I don’t praise myself, no one will, ha ha.) But I also gained tremendous joy from it. Especially during hard times—this process saved me and kept me afloat.
Kent Bye: Well, there are plenty of hardcore VRChat users who I know who are singing your praises, and after seeing thousands of pieces of VR work over 11 years, your work definitely has a unique and singular vision.
This is probably a good place to pause and then wrap it all up tomorrow. I very much appreciate your willingness to share as much as you have so far.
DrMorro: Yes, of course I’m being ironic about the praise. However, thank you and see you tomorrow. Have a nice day!
Kent Bye: Good evening! And now we come to your latest work, RITUAL, which in terms of size and scale is probably your biggest and most vast world produced to date. Very similar in terms of your signature liminal style, but also expanding out into some new styles of immersive art. The “golden path” in this seemed to be a bit more clear and linear, but yet at the same time there are still so many different side quests to fully explore this world with many hidden gems and symbolic clues to be discovered.
I’m curious to hear how you describe RITUAL in the context of the continued development and evolution of your craft of VRChat world building?
DrMorro: Greetings! I don’t really have any structured labels for my works. How would you usually describe your dreams in the morning? Probably something like, “Oh, so nostalgic.” Or “That was – wow! I was flying like in childhood.” And finally, “Damn, it seems like I have a fever, and I can’t tell if I was sleeping or delirious.”
Yeah, I guess that last one fits pretty well.
If we’re talking about what type of world it is. I’ve already mentioned it a bit earlier. RITUAL is a kind of alchemical treatise and something like the “Voynich Manuscript” and an experiment of sorts. Though it’s unlikely to ever be deciphered. And that’s fine. It’ll remain my personal black box.
Kent Bye: Yeah, I felt that RITUAL leaned much more into that fever-dream aesthetic with even more surreal scenes with recurring characters and themes. I kept thinking of Meow Wolf as a reference, which has been exploring large-scale surreal immersive art in physical locations.
But consistent in your work is this sense of liminality, or being caught in between different destinations. Some of the more compelling immersive art that I’ve seen in VRChat over the years has explored this concept of the “liminal,” especially in your work. I’m curious how you think about “liminality” or being caught in between a mashup of a “cat and an orange” as you have referred to it before.
DrMorro: Well, “liminality” isn’t really a hybrid of something. I associate hybridity more with the paradox and unpredictability of our creative consciousness.
“Liminality” is more of a feeling. It’s closest to smells—a certain emotion born from being in a certain environment. An environment you’ve caught in an unusual state. This generally aligns with the typical definition of liminality.
But I’ve always felt that “click” of the switch in real life. Whether you’re walking through an endless underground passage lit by yellow lamps, or down an empty hospital corridor, then that sensation, that “taste,” always appears. It’s captivating because it is as if a curtain to a parallel reality is being lifted right before your eyes. That’s why I’ve always wanted to achieve this effect in my works.
And of course, it’s trendy now—all those backrooms (or maybe not anymore, I don’t keep up, haha!)
Kent Bye: The way that I’ve heard liminality described is as a form of a threshold and state of transition, which can be somewhat ambiguous and disorienting. This liminality in your work seems to evoke these states of awe and wonder in me because I don’t know quite what to expect. So transcending my expectations, and not having a schema or model of where we’re at or what exactly we’re experiencing is something you’ve been able to masterfully craft throughout your work.
I did have a question from world builder Fins. I was exploring all of the VRChat worlds featured in the Venice Immersive worlds gallery leading up to this year’s exhibition, and VRChat world builder Fins joined my world hop. He was so excited to take me on a 3.5-hour guided tour of RITUAL. Fins is a lucid dreamer, and he says that your worlds are the closest thing to being in a waking dream, and I completely agree with him. He also wanted you to know that the OLYMPIA world is very meaningful to him as it helped him get through a very hard personal time in his life.
But Fins wanted me to ask, “When creating your worlds, do you predict and attempt to be in the perspective of a player that has no knowledge about the world, and guiding them through your design?” He’s asking this because he noticed that “while you have a very deliberate design to guide the player along, regardless of their experiences, you also reward people for going off road and out of bounds to discover hidden things that enriches the narrative.”
DrMorro: Of course, to some extent, I think about those poor souls destined to spend hours trapped in my signature delirium. Though my inner old-school gamer mantra is still: “No mercy, no hints.” However, with age, I’ve become softer. Yeah, like I think to myself, “Here, they walked for half an hour in one direction. I wonder if they’ll have to trek back the same half hour. Will they curse me mildly or intensely? So let’s play it safe with a teleporter and some visual reward.”
That said, the levels develop somewhat on their own, and I really love that. I simply feel this “life” within them that I sometimes guide, sometimes add a separate branch, etc.
Of course, I sense what the player will feel. After all, my task is to manipulate their attention and emotions.
But as I’ve said, I create worlds primarily for myself. So if you suddenly wander off to god knows where chasing god knows what, just know it’s because I was curious to see that seemingly meaningless little piece.
Kent Bye: Yeah. Revisiting your complete body of work this week has hit me differently than when I first encountered it spread out over the course of the last four years. There have been many ongoing battles around “What is truth? What is delusion?” in the political context here in the United States, but also around the world.
You said to Del Arte Magazine that “if you can’t escape something, you should change your attitude towards it, make the surrounding images a little more lively and bright.” So there’s a lot of these realities in the world right now that I feel even more ready to escape into something beautiful and profound, and I’ve certainly found that within your work.
But I’m curious if you’re willing to share any more context of the realities that you’re aspiring to escape and transmute through your art.
DrMorro: You know, I’ve noticed something. When I create a world around a certain theme, afterwards, that theme completely disappears from within me—like closing a gestalt. It’s all experienced so intensely inside that it just burns out in a bright flame. In a way, it’s a form of psychotherapy.
For example, I realized that I no longer feel that ache in my chest when looking at all those dull, gray Soviet-era panel buildings or something dearly nostalgic from my childhood. The theme closes. And that’s great because ultimately, I want to become like clear, tasteless water, not constant flavors.
Yes, at first, I transform the everyday in my work, but then it simply starts fading from my attention. And this empty space, this void—I like it much more. What is truth? Maybe it’s exactly this empty space where everything unfolds. But in this form, it’s unlikely to interest anyone. After all, there’s no passion, no movement, or no impressions there.
Any movement gives birth to duality — plus and minus. Yes, yes — one body, two heads. Therefore, even the desire to hide in something will inevitably lead you to other torments, such as boredom or even greater fear of the outside.
Kent Bye: Beautiful! Very well said. As we start to wrap up, here’s a question that I like to ask all of my interviewees: What do you think is the ultimate potential of virtual reality and immersive art, and what that might be able to enable?
DrMorro: Oh well, I wouldn’t be DrMorro if I didn’t end all this on a minor note! I don’t think anything good awaits us in the near future. And it’s not just about VR technology specifically—right now, there’s simply a lack of meaningful content for it.
For me, the main VR game where I’ve spent hundreds of hours isn’t VRChat at all, but Eleven Table Tennis. Everything there is perfect, and that’s currently the ceiling.
What VR really needs is a vertical leap, and a transition to a new level. Just like how we got the first 3D shooters like Doom back in the day. VR is the same. Maybe when a player completely forgets their previous real-world experience, that’s when they’ll be capable of genuine emotions—fear, love, and so on. So that after taking off the headset, they’ll just say, “Wow!” That would be incredible. But what technology would make it possible? Neuroimplants? The Matrix? Though maybe we’re already playing such a game.
So back to why everything’s so bleak. The trouble is, we’re facing a crisis of ideas, which was almost inevitable. What passes for “new” is just combinatorics of the old. You see it clearly in contemporary art where at best, it’s Madonna with Mickey Mouse’s head. At worst, it’s a million-dollar banana serving as a kind of post-modern tombstone. And this is supposedly “high art,” the locomotive driving mass culture.
Now AI has jumped into the mix, which means we’ll get openly low-quality products, plus generations of degrading people even more hooked on cheap dopamine hits. Idiocracy. Complexity doesn’t survive. You see it everywhere—in the evolution of literature, philosophy, music. And yes, in video games as well. There’s an initial explosive phase with boundary-pushing experimenters, but then everything gradually flows into commercial waters, and we end up with plastic, cheap fast food.
Basically, the entire cultural landscape has come to this. And VR won’t save it. A handful of enthusiasts can’t change the weather as the global trend is plain to see. The market dictates to the majority, and it’ll remain a Cookie Clicker for a long time. Though I suppose modern young people are happy with how things are. And me? I’ve played my part as the grumpy old man. Mission accomplished.
Kent Bye: Ha! Well, at least you’re staying on brand, and speaking to some deeper truths about the state of the world that I know I’m feeling as well – as many others as well.
And I know many find some antidotes to all of this within your own immersive art.
So a final question I have is to see if there’s anything left unsaid or any other final thoughts that you’d like to share with the broader VRChat community or VR community and fans of your work?
DrMorro: Well, I usually tell everyone, “Everything I wanted to say, I’ve already expressed in my worlds.” Honestly, it’s hard to get me to talk as I’m a seasoned sociophobe and introvert. But you managed to do it. Thank you!
If we’re wrapping up, I’d like to end with words of gratitude to everyone who has supported me on this journey including world creators, players, the community, everyone who helped me with my work, those who simply spent their time exploring my worlds, and those who supported me financially through donations. I truly value it all.
A huge plus of my worlds is thanks to them. I’ve met many wonderful people, and my worlds have even slightly changed some lives. It just makes me feel like a real Demiurge, damn it.
Thank you too for your interesting questions and this conversation. See you around! And keep creating. It makes everything around us a little better—I’ve tested it, it works!
Kent Bye: Awesome! Well, DrMorro, thanks so much for going on this epic journey with me. It was a real honor and privilege to have this opportunity to conduct this “19th-Century style correspondence interview” with you over the past five days in a text-based format that is new to me.
I find your worlds to be so incredibly awe-inspiring and ground breaking, and I know that your work is so dearly beloved by myself and many of the biggest users of VRChat.
And even if the broader VR industry may be doomed to have everything “flow into commercial shores,” I know that there are still these pockets of truly wild experimentation that are happening on platforms like VRChat, and your work is a prime example that pushes the boundaries of what is possible.
You have such a singular and unique vision that you’ve been exploring through your cathartic process of VRChat world building where you’ve been transmuting the mundane reality around you into something truly magical and otherworldly.
But also exploring how to modulate space through virtual architecture and sound design in a way that pushes forward what’s possible with environmental storytelling through dream logic spanning the full range of more cryptic personal symbols, culturally-specific collective symbols, and finally more universal and archetypal symbols.
There are so many layers in your work for users to unpack, and I’m sure many will appreciate some of the clues you’ve provided here along with some of your own design intentions. And even if folks are not interested in the deeper meaning or this decoding process, there are still plenty of opportunities for folks to find their own meaning in your work as they explore the many different layers of your worlds that you’ve crafted.
You’ve certainly transcended our expectations and mashed up realities in novel ways on a scope and scale beyond what anyone else is doing. Like VRChat user Tokkio said, people on VRChat measure their time on the platform by when you drop new worlds to be discovered and explored.
So I know that I’ve really enjoyed having the opportunity to hear more about your process and evolving journey of creation, So thanks again for time and patience, and for joining me here on the Voices of VR podcast to help break it all down.
DrMorro: [Hand shake emoji]
You can support DrMorro’s work through Boosty, and you can support the Voices of VR podcast through Patreon.
This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.
Music: Fatality
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
