Everything Immersive This Week (9/20/20)
Falling into the future
The horizon line is still uncertain, to say the least, but possible futures are presenting themselves to us left and right.
This week saw the announcement of the Oculus Quest 2 from Facebook, along with a vision of an augmented reality future from Oculus’ Chief Scientist Michael Abrash. We get into some of that on this week’s podcast, but expect more as we go forward.
All this, NINETEEN NEW LISTINGS, and more await you below.
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ON THE PODCAST THIS WEEK
Kathryn Yu, Patrick McLean, and Will Cherry of the NoPro team join host Noah Nelson to talk the news of the week including:
- Venice VR Expanded
- More VR Festivals
- Pandemic Era Programming
and, burying the lede:
- The Oculus Quest 2.
Here. We. Go.
FROM EI: SHOWS, EVENTS, & EXPERIENCES
New York
- Descent
An augmented reality quest
Chicago
- WANDER: Lincoln Square — A Chicago Walking Experience
Walking Tour Museum Linking the Past and the Present
Cleveland
- The Wandering
a story of time, space, and a group of strangers brought together under mysterious circumstances.
Austin
- The VORTEX Odyssey
A Drive-Thru Performance Installation
Las Vegas
- The Parking Lot
A new play for the socially distant era… - Horrorwood Video: Highway to Hell
Drive into your VHS nightmares
Peoria, Arizona
- Curiouser & Curiouser
Follow the White Rabbit…
Physical Games & Experiences (At-Home)
- These Pages Fall Like Ash
A story told across the pages of two books — one physical, one digital.
Telephone
- Baby Jessica’s Well-Made Play
The true story of Baby Jessica inspires a conversation on fear, hope, culture and memory.
Interactive Livestream
- As Far As Isolation Goes
1-on-1 Multi-sensory online performance - Contestants! Please go to the Di(e)ary Room!
An interactive online murder mystery set at a reality TV show in 2000! - Elephant Room: Dust from the Stars
- Static Apnea
a socially distanced performative installation - The VORTEX Odyssey: Underworld
A virtual choose-your-own-adventure journey through the realms of Hades. - Murder at River Crossing Book Club
Find out who killed Ursula Fitzroy. - Dinner with Dracula
A murder mystery dinner party - Hocus Pocus: A Musical Cocktail Experience
A 90 minute livestreamed magical musical mixology session taught by a trio of witches - Mind’s Eye Adventure Parties
As far as our imagination can take you.
Live Action Role-Playing Game (At-Home)
- Basic Principles Of Magick
Want to be a wizard?
Have a show or event you’d like to see here? Submit at EverythingImmersive.com
REVIEWS
Kathryn shares her notes from Venice VR Expanded, and Kevin enjoys dinner and a mystery in his “new home” with Welcome Home (which should remount in October in LA) in this week’s reviews.
News From around the Immersiverse
Let’s kick it off with Facebook Connect and the keynote.
Now most of the hour and forty eight keynote talk was, in a word, underwhelming, thanks to the early in the week leak of the Oculus Quest 2. It’s always hard for companies to generate the hype they seek when the news has already been dissected by social media. Ironic for a social media company, if you think about it.
The good stuff is at the end, when Oculus Chief Scientist Michael Abrash gives a succinct vision of where he sees augmented reality going over the long haul and some of the concrete steps it will take to get there. (Here, I’ve fast forwarded the YouTube of the talk to right before he speaks.)
Now for close observers of the space, a lot of what’s being talked about isn’t groundbreaking, but rarely have the links in the chain been put together so well. And while there’s overlap with what Magic Leap used to talk about with their “Magicverse,” there’s something to these ideas coming out of Facebook — a company that is already ubiquitous and whose brief is to become more ubiquitous still.
There’s lots of ethical and civil issues to unpack here, and that’s beyond the scope of a weekly news roundup. But mark it: the unintended consequences of this technology are something we should all be trying to get ahead of, and leveraging our collective experience with plain old vanilla social media is where to start.
Annnnyway.
Snapping back to a less ethically complicated space: Cara Mandel wrote up a really lovely piece about how she’s been using online escape games and the like to ground her and give her a sense of continuity with the World Before™. It’s a great read.
VIFF Immersed announced their upcoming lineup for the festival kicking off on September 24th, The Elf on the Shelf is coming to LA this winter with one of these new-fangled drive-ins, and Dreamscape Immersive will be collaborating with Arizona State University on an initiative the duo calls Dreamscape Learn that will bring VR and avatars into the University.
Darkfield has a new Darkfield Radio piece — VISITORS — coming this October, the Oculus Quest news gave us our first glimpse at a familiar face, and voice, in the Star Wars: Tales From The Galaxy’s Edge teaser trailer, MYST — yes, that MYST — is getting remade in VR, and Beat Saber is getting multiplayer.
Now Funding
The Club Drosselmeyer 1943 Radio Broadcast
An interactive radio show, an ARG puzzle hunt, and a Nutcracker in Swingtime!
Club Drosselmeyer is an Interactive Nutcracker in swing-time! For the last four Decembers, we’ve delighted Bostonians with a WW2-era nightclub and our own live, swing-time version of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite played by our 8 piece swing band. In the club, players dress their 1943 best, solve puzzles, work together, watch our floor show, listen to the excellent band and dance the night away! It’s amazing… but 150 people in a club is just not going to cut it this year. That’s why it’s time for the Club Drosselmeyer Radio Hour.
Discover the latest immersive events, festivals, workshops, and more at our new site EVERYTHING IMMERSIVE, new home of NoPro’s show listings.
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