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Voices of VR

Kent Byevoicesofvr.com
Designing for Virtual Reality. Oral history podcast featuring the pioneering artists, storytellers, and technologists driving the resurgence of virtual & augmented reality. Learn about the patterns of immersive storytelling, experiential design, ethical frameworks, & the ultimate potential of XR.
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Episodes

#1494: Innovative VR Opera “From Dust” Combines GenAI Prompts, Digital Serenading, & Personality Branching

From Dust is a 24-minute VR Opera by composer Michel van der Aa that is premiering this week at the Rotterdam Immersive Tech Week, and I had a chance to get a sneak peak at the end of my trip covering IDFA DocLab in Amsterdam. The emotional core of From Dust is the top-notch composition from van der Aa and brilliant musical performance by Sjaella. It was a really powerful and moving immersive journey that seamlessly integrated my GenAI prompts creating a personalized experience. I can highly rec...

Dec 02, 202457 min

#1493: “About a Hero” Doc Written by AI Trained on Werner Herzog Corpus Blends Realities and Opens IDFA

About a Hero is a documentary that reenacts an imaginal, true crime documentary script written by an AI language model that was trained on a corpus of Werner Herzog content. It's a film that blends and blurs the lines between what's physically-captured, documentary material versus completely constructed and fabricated content generated by AI. It's the opening night documentary film at the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam, and it's also featured within the DocLab Spotlight. I ...

Nov 14, 202436 min

#1492: IDFA DocLab Curators Preview 2024 Slate of AI & XR Immersive Documentaries

I speak with the curators of the 28 immersive documentary projects being featured at the 18th edition of IDFA DocLab including Caspar Sonnen, Nina van Doren, and Toby Coffey. The theme of this year's program is "This is Not a Simulation," and there were many immersive projects that featured AI this year. We talked about each of the experiences in this year's program, except for the three projects I've previously covered at Venice Immersive 2024 (All I Know About Teacher Li, Fragile Home, & I...

Nov 13, 20241 hr 25 min

#1491: Film Gate Interactive Media Festival 10-Year Retrospective

Film Gate Interactive celebrated their 10-year anniversary in 2023, and I had a chance to get a retrospective recap from founder and curator Diliana Alexander as well as with board members Savannah Niles and James Powderly. Their 11th edition of Film Gate Interactive is happening December 4-8th, 2024 and so be sure to check out their sponsorship deck for more context on the many different partnerships and collaborations that Alexander has set up in this unique regional immersive festival. We tal...

Nov 13, 202427 min

#1490: “Any War Any Enemy” is a Beautiful Anti-War, Immersive Poem About Nuclear Annihilation

Lena Herzog's Any War Any Enemy is a hauntingly beautiful spatial poem that takes us on a liminal journey about nuclear annihilation. Rather than disassociating and letting power structures sleepwalk us all into catastrophe, she explores a new form of transcendental anti-war protest by leaning into an underlying existential angst that doesn't turn away from the human costs. It's a cautionary tale that serves as a wake-up call about the insanity of mutually-assured destruction, and an opportunity...

Oct 31, 20241 hr 7 min

#1489: “Gorilla Tag” Design Philosophy & Embodied Gameplay Deep Dive with Kerestell Smith

I interviewed Kerestell Smith, Chief Creative Officer at Another Axiom and original solo creator of Gorilla Tag, at Meta Connect 2024. Another Axiom announced in June that Gorilla Tag has surpassed $100 million in lifetime revenue. We talk about the journey into creating Gorilla Tag, the underlying design philosophy of emphasizing embodied gameplay and proprioceptive consistency, as well as what's coming next in their follow-on title of Orion Drift. See more context in the rough transcript below...

Oct 06, 20241 hr 6 min

#1487: XR Evangelists JoyReign & JDun on Horizon World Trends & Meta Connect Announcements

I interviewed XR Evangelists JoyReign Creator of Joy In The Morning Show and CEO of Onyx Leaf Media as well as JDun of the Getting Things Dun YouTube channel, Get'Em To The Metaverse Podcast, & Chief Metaverse Officer of Onyx Leaf Media, at Meta Connect 2024. See more context in the rough transcript below. Here's the Question HDMI video that JDun mentioned in the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8QDvoEJLps This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music:...

Oct 06, 202446 min

#1486: Going All-in with Gaussian Splats: Gracia’s Viewer, AI Training, & Photoreal Capture with VR Fund’s Tipatat Chennavasin

I interviewed Tipatat Chennavasin, General Partner and co-founder of Venture Reality Fund, at Meta Connect 2024 about why he has gone all-in with Gaussian Splatting by investing in the Gracia.ai and their viewer that's on the Quest store. We also talk about some of the news from Meta Connect, Quest 3S excitement, the merits of AAA games like Batman Arkham Shadow to bring more people into VR, and other some experiences and demos that caught his attention at Meta Connect 2024. See more context in ...

Oct 06, 202427 min

#1485: Fitness Flow States with “Starwave” Design Innovation Leads & Finding Love within VR

I interviewed Job Stauffer and Robin Orr, the two design innovation leads on Starwave, at Meta Connect 2024. They also met and fell in love in VR, and each share their respective journeys into the space through building community around VR fitness experiences. See more context in the rough transcript below. Here's the launch trailer for Starwave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LtG2qnPeSY This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

Oct 06, 202448 min

#1484: Cas & Chary on Meta Connect Announcements & Using Ray-Ban Meta Smartglasses to Stay Connected

I interviewed Casandra Vuong and Chary Keijzer of the Cas and Chary YouTube channel, at Meta Connect 2024 about all of the latest announcements, their journey into their XR coverage, and how they use the Ray-Ban Meta Smartglasses to stay connected to each other. See more context in the rough transcript below. Here's their video about the Quest 3S launch produced while onsite at Meta Connect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrGZ7ef84tw This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR...

Oct 06, 202428 min

#1482: Mixed Reality Gameplay Innovations & Design Insights from “Starship Home” Co-Directors Mark Schramm & Ashley Pinnick

I interviewed Co-Directors of Starship Home Mark Schramm, Director of Engineering at Creature, and Ashley Pinnick, Art Director at Creature, at Meta Connect 2024. See more context in the rough transcript below. Here's the Launch Trailer for Starship Home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6SepPOEwh8 This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

Oct 06, 202454 min

#1481: Agile Lens 2024: Context on Boz’s Apology to VR Devs, Orion AR Glasses Impressions, & Unreal Engine Mediation with Apple/Meta

I interviewed Alex Coulombe, Studio Lead & CEO of Agile Lens Immersive Design, at Meta Connect 2024 about Meta's Orion AR Glasses first impressions, being a mediator with Apple and Epic Games as well as with Meta and Epic Games, and a bit more context as to why Meta CTO Andrew "Boz" Bosworth gave an apology to developers at the beginning of the developer keynote. See more context in the rough transcript below. Also be sure to read Coulombe's Orion hands-on impressions in his UploadVR article...

Oct 06, 202445 min

#1480: Agile Lens 2023: Hands on with Four Seasons VR Demo & A Christmas Carol VR 2023

I'm diving into my backlog to publish three unpublished interviews with Agile Lens with this last conversation from December 2023. I interviewed Alex Coulombe, Lead & CEO of Agile Lens Immersive Design, Kevin Laibson, Experience Director for Agile Lens, and Jackie Roman, Cinematographer at Agile Lens, at FilmGate Interactive 2023 about the Four Seasons Lake Austin VR experience as well as the A Christmas Carol VR experience. See more context in the rough transcript below. This is a listener-...

Oct 06, 202442 min

#1479: Agile Lens 2023: Selling High-End Real Estate with VR, Unreal’s Meta Humans. Pixel Streaming, & AI Experiments

I'm diving into my backlog to publish three unpublished interviews with Alex Coulombe, Creative Director of Agile Lens Immersive Design, with the second interview that happened at Tribeca Immersive 2023. See more context in the rough transcript below. Here's a talk that was given later in 2023 about the Four Seasons Lake Austin VR experience given at Unreal Fest 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6la2yieiCG0 This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatalit...

Oct 06, 202453 min
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