News
Ballet’s brave new world in virtual reality - California News Times
Ballets embracing the change in perspective a person experiences being amongst the dancers instead of watching a stage. This transforms the audience into another dancer participating in the performance instead of merely observing it. Back in issue 16 we highlighted an inspirational essay describing how art would need to embrace and evolve with technology and the audience, and we feel this is exactly what the essay describes. Boston Ballet will release the performance later this year for viewing, and we'll be sure to feature it here and on Twitter when it's available.
Spark AR | Join the Spark AR Video Calling Beta
Facebook opened its beta access for SparkAR effects for video calling. This was announced at its f8 Refresh virtual developer conference. This is more than just filters for video calls, and allows effects by all users in the call to have an effect and interact. We've joined the waitlist and will share what we learn if we're granted access.
Touching Holograms. How the Microsoft Mixed Reality Studios… | by Microsoft Design | Microsoft Design | May, 2021 | Medium
The question "what if" is a powerfully inspirational one that asks what would happen if we tried to solve things a different way, or if a condition we thought true were different. This article takes you through a way of interacting with VR objects utilizing digital stand-ins for hands, and how asking a simple question lead to a very intuitive interface.
Jentrix | Beta Testers
If you've ever wondered what it would be like to merge the stacking game Jenga, match 3 gameplay, and all within VR then this is the game for you to try. It's currently available on the Oculus store as a wishlist app but beta access still looks to be available.
Experiences
Sansar
Sansar is a social meeting venue with a lively event lineup and fun avatars, its own in-world currency, and runs on both PCs and VR headsets. There are a few multi-day festivals starting this week, and looks to attract a fairly good lineup of different types of content. Movies, music festivals, classes, and social hangouts are just a few options for socializing within shared virtual spaces.
Half Life VR
Half Life VR (not that Half-Life) is a 360° video of a ballet performed by the Digital Stage of the Royal Swedish Ballet company that is nothing like what you may remember form seeing the Nutcracker in primary school. It has a definite crossover feeling into modern dance, but we trust the experts when they say it's truly a ballet. You should be able to experience it from the website or on the Royal Swedish Opera YouTube channel, but we do recommend watching this on a headset to have the full experience.
Event
Splendour XR | #SplendourXR. Presented by Secret Sounds
if you're a fan of The Killers or Khalid then you should definitely check out this VR music festival. With performances by 50 artists it feels like the type of music festivals we'd attend with thousands. We've seen a lot of solo artists doing online performances and some events with a few groups, but this is the largest we've seen with this many different performers in a VR venue. Tickets are on sale now and the fun goes form Saturday 24 & Sunday 25 July 2021.
One More Thing
The Sabby Life
TheSabbyLife is a VR Artist & Performer specializing in Tilt Brush paintings that truly push the limit of what you might think possible. From her festival installations and performances, to the virtual worlds she builds, to the Disney inspired work, we are truly happy both watching and traversing these works of art. TheSabbyLife (Twitter, Twitch, and Instagram) is definitely worth checking out.
Commentary
This past week was mostly spent on two very different paths.
The first was learning about problems we currently have with security and privacy. Some are new problems brought about from VR/XR still being fairly new mediums, others are inherited from operating systems allowing their security to be bypassed. If you're not already following Kent Bye on Twitter or subscribed to Voices of VR podcast you should definitely do that if you're interested in the ethical and privacy issues we face in the upcoming years. With a greater adoption of VR we will also see an increased interest in information gathering. Without the necessary laws and frameworks put in place we run the risk of being quite vulnerable to many different types of intrusions. The recent episode talking with the legal non-profit the Electronic Frontier Foundation speaks to this far better than I have room here to go into, and is definitely worth a listen.
We will definitely have to dedicate a few issues of the newsletter to these concerns in the future, but for this week we our second area of interest seemed to be around theater and performances VR. The amount of people who are interested in new technology and also really like ballet is probably fairly small but we hope you'll find some of the links and info we share this week interesting. At the very least, if you've wanted to see a ballet but didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars on tickets this is your opportunity to see if it's something you just didn't know you love already.
Thank you for reading and subscribing, and we'll see you next week!
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