Entertainment

783 episodes

#1159: “With These Hands” VR Installation Explores Sexual Violence Stories with New Models of Consent for Audience & Production

by kentbyeDecember 21, 2022

With These Hands is a VR installation that “shares challenging, complex and under discussed stories of sexual assault and recovery. It explores the role of listening in the recovery of both survivors and those responsible for sexual harm.” It was...

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#1158: Searching for Post-Colonial Identity in an Experimental Oral Knowledge & Multi-Media Project “Ghana Airways”

by kentbyeDecember 21, 2022

Ghana Airways by Hakeem Adam was shown at IDFA DocLab 2022 as an experimental, non-linear audio installation with accompanying visuals, but it is also available online on Bandcamp as a linear, one-hour, 3-part audio series. The piece is Adam’s...

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#1157: Capturing the Digital Culture of a Virtual Help Desk for the Elderly in “New Update Available – Version 2.1”

by kentbyeDecember 21, 2022

New Update Available – Version 2.1 is a VR installation piece that blends contemporary audio documentary recordings of computer help sessions for the elderly, but then recreates these characters in VR within a speculative future where elders gather...

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1156: Winner of IDFA DocLab Digital Storytelling Award “He Fucked the Girl Out of Me” Explores Trauma in 2D Retro Game Walking Simulator

by kentbyeDecember 21, 2022

Taylor McCue’s He Fucked the Girl Out of Me (play for free on itch.io) won the IDFA DocLab Digital Storytelling Award at DocLab 2022. It is a deeply personal story and powerful exploration of shame and trauma that uses a unique blend of retro 2D...

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#1155: Polymorf’s Multi-Sensory “Symbiosis” Explores Speculative Futures Inspired by Philosopher Donna Haraway

by kentbyeDecember 21, 2022

Polymorf's Symbiosis is a multi-sensory VR experience that uses soft-body haptics, a bespoke, microdose smell dispersal system, and different tastes. The piece debuted at IDFA DocLab 2021 (see my previous interview here), and it has a sold out run...

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#1154: Visualizing Melting Glaciers in 360 Video Story in “Once a Glacier” + Mixing Motion Capture Dance and Indigenous Poetry

by kentbyeDecember 21, 2022

Once a Glacier is a 360 video that visualizes the before and after a glacier melts over the course of a single human life time. Director Jiabao then expanded this piece as a part of a live motion capture dance performance that showed at The ONX +...

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#1153: Imagining the Future of a 15-year old in 30 years in “Horizon” One-on-One Immersive Theater Piece

by kentbyeDecember 12, 2022

Horizon is a one-on-one immersive theater piece where an audience member is asked a series of questions by a 15-year old to imagine their future 30 years from now in 2052. It ends up being a world building exercise where the audience has to create...

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#1152: Provoking Deeper Questions about the Ecological Sustainability of XR Tech with “Okawari VR”

by kentbyeDecember 12, 2022

This episode kicks off my 18-episode coverage from International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (IDFA) DocLab, which features the latest innovations of immersive storytelling from the documentary community. Okawari VR is an immersive experience...

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#1151: Shooting an Immersive Doc the War on Ukraine’s Culture with NowHere Media

by kentbyeDecember 1, 2022

You Destroy. We Create: The War on Ukraine’s Culture is a 360-video documentary by NowHere Media & Meta’s VR for Good that was released on Meta Quest TV on November 30th. Shot over the course of 2 weeks and a distance of 4000 kilometers by co...

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#1148: Golf+ VR: Making Golf More Accessible & Partnering with Top Golfers & Sports Stars

by kentbyeNovember 4, 2022

The seeds of Golf+ VR started with founder Ryan Engle creating an iOS ARKit app to help read the golf putting green topology to give a suggested path to help improve his puts, but the lack of demand caused a pivot into moving into a professional...

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#1146: Brad Lynch’s Journey as a VR Hardware Analyst: Valve Deckard, Speculative Patent Research, & Hardware Leaks

by kentbyeOctober 18, 2022

Brad Lynch has described his SadlyItsBradly YouTube channel as a speculation and prediction channel focusing on the next generation VR hardware, and it has been providing some of the most insightful and detailed VR hardware analysis in the XR...

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#1144: Venice Immersive Panel on The Art of Reviewing Immersive Art and Entertainment

by kentbyeOctober 11, 2022

This is the 26th & last episode of my Venice Immersive 2022 coverage, and I wanted to end with this discussion amongst film and immersive critics about the various challenges for reviewing and critiquing immersive art and entertainment. This is a...

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#1143: VRChat World Builder Fins and his 3 Experiences in Venice Immersive 2022: “Treasure Heist,” “Magic Heist,” and “District Roboto”

by kentbyeOctober 11, 2022

VRChat world builder Fins had 3 experiences in Venice Immersive 2022 with one in competition (Treasure Heist), and two in the Worlds Gallery (Magic Heist and District Roboto). Fins comes from an illustration and concept artist background, and so...

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#1142: Scene-by-Scene Breakdown of “Kindred” Exploring Themes of LGBTQ+ Identity and Family

by kentbyeOctober 11, 2022

Kindred is a short and sweet experience that explores issues of non-binary, gender-questioning, and LGBTQ+ identities in the context of family. It’s an animated piece that manages to be both general and universal in it’s themes, but you learn at the...

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#1141: Venice Immersive VRChat Worlds Gallery Producer Mike Salmon on Curating the Frontiers of DIY World Building

by kentbyeOctober 11, 2022

Mike Salmon is the producer of the VRChat Worlds Gallery at Venice Immersive, which means that the scouts out potential worlds, helps track down potential events to feature, and coordinates all of the physical and virtual docents who helping to...

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#1139: Rock-Solid Hand-Tracking Interactions in “Rock Paper Scissors” Experience Exploring A Mother-Daughter Relationship

by kentbyeOctober 11, 2022

Paper Rock Scissors is an interactive story that uses hand-tracking to allow the audience member to play the game of Rock Paper Scissors in the context of a story of how a mother and daughters use the game to make a variety of different types of...

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#1138: “The Miracle Basket” has a DIY Punk Aesthetic with Solid Storytelling about Our Relationship to the Earth

by kentbyeOctober 11, 2022

The Miracle Basket is the perfect example for why you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover as it’s a really well-told story behind what director Abner Preis calls a DIY Punk aesthetic that he describes as looking like it may have been drawn by a...

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#1137: My Phantom Touch Experience in Trippy & Hypnotic Hand Tracking Experience “Elele”

by kentbyeOctober 11, 2022

Elele is an Venice Immersive experience that was selected as a part of the Biennale College Cinema selection, and it’s a quite compelling embodied experience exploring that transforms your hands via hand tracking into a spatialized living sculptures...

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#1136: “Reimagined” Quill Anthology Animation Series Creates New Fairy Tales with Female Protagonists

by kentbyeOctober 11, 2022

Reimagined Volume I: Nyssa uses Quill to tell the fairy tale story of a young woman on a mission to find her friend, and there’s a lot of stylized camera movements that adds a cinematic quality to a spatial story that’s otherwise pretty theatrically...

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#1135: Combining Opera, Theatre, & Long-Distance Walking in VR for “Eurydice: Descent into Infinity”

by kentbyeOctober 11, 2022

Eurydice: Descent into Infinity sets out to combine theatrical staging with opera with walking incredibly long distances in VR to reimagine the myth of Eurydice and Orpheus. The take-away feeling that I had from this experience was a deep and...

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#1134: Using Text, Imagination, & Psychological Terror in VR with “All Unsaved Progress Will Be Lost”

by kentbyeOctober 10, 2022

All Unsaved Progress Will Be Lost is the type of experience that is better the less you know about it, but I really, really loved this piece as it efficiently packs in a lot of emotional punch in such a short time. The primary mode of storytelling...

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#1133: How Funique VR Supervisor Ming-Yuan CHUAN worked on 3 Venice Immersive Competition Pieces

by kentbyeOctober 10, 2022

Funique VR Supervisor Ming-Yuan CHUAN worked on three projects that all finished at the same time under deadline for the Venice Immersive 2022. Red Tail is an animation piece that uses photogrammetry on built figures, and The Man Who Couldn’t Leave...

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#1132: Using Group Discussions & Voting on Moral Dilemmas to Tell Buddhist Stories in “Mandala”

by kentbyeOctober 10, 2022

Mandala: A Brief Moment in Time is an immersive theater experience for 3-6 people that uses group discussions to tell different stories from Buddhism around the themes of suffering, happiness, hungry ghosts, & living the good life. There's a moral...

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#1131: Unpacking Taiwan’s Immersive Storytelling Innovations with Taiwan Creative Content Agency & Kaohsiung Film Festival

by kentbyeOctober 10, 2022

Two of my favorite experiences at Venice Immersive this year were from Taiwan, All That Remains and The Man Who Couldn't Leave, which took the top jure prize this year. Red Tail was another animated piece from Taiwan that was selected for...

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#1130: Combing Mythical Metaphors, Environmental Design, & Volumetric Cut Scenes in “Stay Alive, My Son”

by kentbyeOctober 10, 2022

The Stay Alive, My Son VR experience is an adaptation of Pin Yathay's memoir of his survival of the Cambodian genocide under the Khmer Rouge. Attorney turned immersive storyteller Victoria Bousis translated this book into a spatial journey that...

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#1129: XRMust is Building the IMDB of VR & Covering the Immersive Story Industry

by kentbyeOctober 10, 2022

XRMust is part online magazine covering the immersive storytelling industry through news and interviews, but it’s in process of aggregating thousands of immersive stories into a database that have been showing on the festival circuit (with a...

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#1128: Combining Puzzle Mechanics with Environmental Storytelling in “Mrs. Benz”

by kentbyeOctober 10, 2022

Mrs. Benz: Voyage of Discover combines escape room puzzle mechanics with environmental storytelling with exquisite attention to detail in order to tell the story of Bertha Benz, the the wife of the founder of Mercedes Benz, as she steals his car to...

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#1127: “Darkening:” A Spatial Memoir on Depression with Voice Interactions & Social Dynamics

by kentbyeOctober 10, 2022

Darkening is a personal memoir experience by Ondřej Moravec, who takes the viewer on an interactive journey through a variety of spatial metaphors of his experience of depression. There are a number of interactive opportunities to use your voice to...

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#1126: Re-creating Experimental Theatre 1:1 Encounters via 360 video with “All That Remains”

by kentbyeOctober 10, 2022

All That Remains is a surreal embodied adventure through liminal moments that is open-ended enough to leave a lot of room for the audience to project a wide range of associative meaning, memories, or emotions onto it. It is the closest that I've...

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#1125: Fusing Dance, Fashion, & Immersion with “Dazzle” as a contrast to Camouflage

by kentbyeOctober 10, 2022

I speak with the four creators of Dazzle: A Re-Assembly of Bodies experience, which includes choreographer and dancer Ruth Gibson and visual artist Bruno Martelli of Gibson/Martelli, as well as Bine Roth & Alexa Pollmann of Peut-Porter. This dance...

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#1124: Emotionally-Moving 360 Video on Taiwan’s White Terror “The Man Who Couldn’t Leave” Wins Top Prize at Venice Immersive 2022

by kentbyeSeptember 23, 2022

The Man Who Couldn’t Leave is a emotionally-evocative 360 video and powerfully-told story about political prisoners during Taiwan’s White Terror trying to communicate with their families. It took home the top prize at Venice Immersive 2022 for it’s...

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#1123: Interactive Animation of Polarized City “From the Main Square” Wins 2nd Prize at Venice Immersive 2022

by kentbyeSeptember 23, 2022

From the Main Square tells the story of a polarized city by placing you in the middle of a hand-drawn and animated city as it goes through different waves of conflict and evolution. There are many individual characters who you can trace throughout...

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#1122: Mixed Reality Platformer “Eggscape” by 3DAR Wins 3rd Place Prize at Venice Immersive 2022

by kentbyeSeptember 23, 2022

Eggscape is a mixed reality gaming prototype from the Argentinean 3Dar VR, film, & animation studio behind Gloomy Eyes and Paper Birds that leverages the black & white, mixed reality passthrough mode of the Meta Quest 2. It's a has a really...

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#1121: Venice Immersive 2022 Competition Recap: 30+ Reviews of Immersive Stories

by kentbyeSeptember 12, 2022

Venice Immersive 2022 featured 30 immersive stories in competition with some of the fiercest competition yet. I’m joined by Pola Weiß to break down, analyze, & critique each one of the 30 experiences in competition starting with the three winners:...

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#1120: Kevin Mack’s Procedural Worldbuilding VRChat in for Venice Immersive Competition

by kentbyeAugust 31, 2022

Kevin Mack is a virtual reality artist who creates abstract and surreal art, and his first VRChat world called NAMUANKI has been selected as one of the 30 projects in competition at Venice Immersive. You take a tour through some of his organic...

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#1115: Using Multi-Sensory, AR Storytelling at the Mary Rose Cultural Heritage Museum with “Time Detectives AR”

by kentbyeJuly 25, 2022

Time Detectives AR by Picture This Productions is a site-specific AR trail experience meant to be seen at the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth, UK, but you can also experience it remotely as a table-top experience at home. Time Detectives AR asks...

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#1111: Tribeca XR: Panel on Making a Difference with Immersive Non-Fiction Stories

by kentbyeJuly 7, 2022

I moderated a Tribeca Talks Panel discussion on 'Making a Difference with Immersive Non-Fiction Stories' that on Sunday, June 12, 2022 where we focused on the structure and forms of immersive storytelling, and then reflected on the challenges and...

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#1110: Tribeca XR: Bringing Slow Media & the Tenderness of Now to AR Storytelling with “ReachYou”

by kentbyeJuly 7, 2022

ReachYou is an AR story that receives transmissions from the future in order to connect to the tenderness of the now. It's a slow media project aimed to create a portal into a story world that allows the audience to access emotion states of deep...

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#1109: Tribeca XR: “Planet City VR” is a Speculative Architecture Provocation on Who We Want to Be in the Future

by kentbyeJuly 7, 2022

Liam Young is a director and speculative architect who is designing regenerative futures via provocative thought experiments. Planet City VR is the provocation of centralizing all 10 billion humans on the planet to a city the size of Texas so that...

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#1108: Tribeca XR: “LGBTQ+ VR Museum” Curates Touching Objects & Stories & Wins Inaugural Tribeca New Voices Award

by kentbyeJuly 6, 2022

The LGBTQ+ VR Museum won the inaugural Tribeca Immersive New Voices Award as it curated a number of really touching virtual objects, art, and stories from LGBTQ+ people. Antonia Forester started the project after discovering that there was not a...

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#1107: Tribeca XR: Emoji Gestures & Social VR Watch Party of 360 Video Survey of PoC Artists in Maine with “Exhibition A”

by kentbyeJuly 6, 2022

Exhibition A is 'A love letter to women of color written in virtual reality... showcases talent from the POC, immigrant, non-binary, LGBTQ, and Black communities in Portland, Maine.' I had a chance to speak with project creator and producer Janay...

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#1106: Tribeca XR: Story Behind “Zanzibar” Volumetric Doc Shown on Looking Glass Factory’s New 65-inch Holographic Display

by kentbyeJuly 6, 2022

Zanzibar: Trouble in Paradise is a volumetric documentary that premiered at Tribeca Immersive 2022 on the Looking Glass Factory 65-inch Holographic Display that was announced on June 7, 2022 just before the festival. I was able to catch up with...

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#1105: Tribeca XR: Embodiment Experiments in a Surrealist, Speculative, Feminist Eco-Fiction on Plastics Permeating the Body in “Plastisapians”

by kentbyeJuly 6, 2022

First-time VR artists Miri Chekhanovich & Édith Jorisch in collaboration with Dpt. and '>The NFB created some unique embodiment experiments within Plastisapians as they explored speculative futures about plastic permeating and changing our bodies...

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#1104: Tribeca XR: “Evolver” is an Awe-Inspiring Fluid Dynamics Simulation of Human Blood Flow Giving an Embodied Experience of Interbeing

by kentbyeJuly 6, 2022

Marshmallow Laser Feast's latest piece Evolver premiered at the Tribeca Immersive festival, and it takes you inside the human body in a transcendent journey into how the blood flows through our heart and throughout our body. They collaborating with...

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#1103: Tribeca XR: Translating Unmade Films into Spatialized VR Story Treatments with “Missing Pictures”

by kentbyeJuly 6, 2022

Missing Pictures is a five-part episodic series that translates unmade films from famous directors from around the world into a spatialized VR story pitch and treatment. French Director Clément Deneux created a episode short film version called...

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#1102: Tribeca XR: Ethically-Produced MoCap Database & Multi-Media Stories with “Black Movement Library: Movement Portraits”

by kentbyeJuly 6, 2022

Black Movement Library: Movement Portraits is a motion capture database project and series of experiences across different media by multi-media artist LaJuné McMillian. She wanted to see more black dancers represented in motion capture data, but...

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#1101: Tribeca XR: AR Rock Operetta & Shakespeare-Villain Origin Story in “Iago: The Green Eyed Monster AR”

by kentbyeJuly 6, 2022

Iago: The Green Eyed Monster is an Animated AR, Rock Operetta, exploring the villain origin story of the character of Iago from Shakespeare Othello. There are links to the iOS and Android AR app linked on their website, and I'd recommend checking...

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#1099: “The Infinite” Location-Based Experience Expands Cinematic VR Footage of the ISS into an Interactive Exploration

by kentbyeJune 22, 2022

The Infinite is a location-based VR experience that allows you to freely roam around an architectural abstraction of the International Space Station with friends and family, and it has 360 video photospheres that transport you to nearly 60 excerpts...

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