A Week in Italy: Everything We Saw in Immersive Venice

Venice Immersive recently returned to Italy, showcasing dozens of VR and AR projects worldwide. As part of the Venice International Film Festival, we attended the festival and got hands-on experience, as well as chatting with the co-curators. This is all we saw.

As someone who has never attended a film festival, never mind the XR film festival, Venice Immersive was a learning experience for me. With 43 projects, plus ‘Immersive World of Venice’ in VRChat with World Gallery inside, I can’t try everything. That said, countless experiences have caught my attention.

Experience something new

Opening day begins with Sen, which places the Vive tracker inside the Chawan. Meet a magical tea god, it’s a short but exciting journey that symbolizes death and rebirth. Complex 7 followed, demonstrating the creative potential of the VRChat world. With its post-apocalyptic setting, number of robots, and adoptable cats, I was reminded of the flat screen game lost.

Narrator: The Seven Crows by Jim Hensonan AR experience using Magic Leap 2, bringing real book pages to life – watch for more on that from Ian Hamilton soon. Gaudi, Divine Workshop looks at the real death of architect Antoni Gaudí in 1926. In the presence of four others, this narrative experience shows us continuing his legacy in building spiritual family. Finally, I finished the day watching The First Ingredient: Stories from Soda Island – Chapter 7.

Hands-on: Empereur shows the emotional potential of narrative VR

Empereur at Venice Immersive brings an emotional story. Our impression:

Thursday begins with Over the Rainbow360 short° the film is initially confused and often borders on surrealism. Next is Emperor, an emotional experience that I have discussed elsewhere and which left me feeling moved. I wasn’t sold on it Tulpamancer in spite of. It asks you questions on your PC before putting on the headset, creating a 360° images with innovative AI. An interesting idea, although I don’t believe the technology is ready for this. The image was distorted and seeing the crowd of eerie valley faces surrounding me was unsettling.

The highlight of Thursday was My body, a full-body VR experience that aims to promote transgender empathy by demonstrating what gender dysphoria looks like. With the Vive tracker placed on my body, I was able to move my arm closer to different parts of my body to hear stories from the transgender community. It was a heartfelt experience and, with transphobia rampant across the globe, one that was unfortunately all too necessary.

Hands-on: Wallace & Gromit VR feels just like the movies

Wallace & Gromit in Grand Getaway is about as funny as the classic Aardman films. Our preview: Our preview:

Come Friday, I play Wallace and Gromit in Grand Getaway. I covered that in more detail in my hands-on preview but in short, I’m very excited for the full release. I don’t like Song for passersby however – a room-scale experience that reflects your own image and tasks you with following it while exploring unusual scenes. Like the Tulpamancer, it’s an interesting concept but didn’t work for me.

I really like it Floating With Soul. The story of two young Mazatec sisters living in Oaxaca, Mexico, begins with live-action footage of preparations for the Day of the Dead. What follows is a mystical journey to lands occupied by four spirits of nature, which immediately captured my attention and greeted me with beautiful scenery.

My final main day was divided into three projects, ending with the Grand Getaway interview. Gargoyle Doyle was my highlight, pushing the boundaries between mixed reality museum and VR storytelling. I’ve detailed my full thoughts in an impressive piece here. Chen Xiang VR Finally, the pre-festival period ends list of projects I really want to try. Adapted from the Chinese myth ‘Chen Xiang splits the mountain to save his mother’, there is a good premise here. Sadly, technical issues dampened the experience, so I’ll reserve judgment further.

How Wallace & Gromit VR pays homage to a great day out

Wallace and Gromit in Grand Getaway pays homage to A Grand Day Out and you can play it all with hand tracking. Our full interview:

With many options available using a variety of headsets – Quest 2, Quest Pro, Vive Focus 3 and Vive Pro 2 being the most prominent – ​​I wanted to learn about the history of Immersive. Midway through my trip, I spoke with the co-curators of Venice Immersive, Liz Rosenthal and Michel Reilhac.

When asked how Immersive started, Reilhac explained that he was hired by the Biennale in 2013 to create the Biennale College, a creative development program. “I started lobbying film festival presidents and directors about VR, telling them that this is what’s going to happen and we should focus on it.”

Bringing Rosenthal on board soon after, a pilot took place in September 2016 and with the support of management, this became a competitive part of the festival. “To this day, it remains the largest festival that treats immersive art as a complete art form and equates it to cinema,” he explains, with Rosenthal adding that each project eligible to receive the Golden Lion award.

Rosenthal explained that the projects were selected through an application process that began in February. The couple also regularly chats with studios and artists with rich content. “Some people approached us about projects, some were done at the Biennale College, some came from Venetian immersive marketReilhac said discussions have begun about potential projects for next year and 2025.

Interested in learning more about what support is offered to developers, I asked about the Biennale College. Reilhac admits that calling it a university is probably not the best name, if only because it is not a school.

“We selected 12 immersive projects in the early stages of development, inviting the group’s directors and producers to Venice for two workshops. The process took eight days and then we selected three to return to the pre-production workshop two months later. Then we choose a project that we fully fund and will launch here,” he confirmed. This year’s choice is The first day. There are also two additional stages in which financing will be transferred to projects that already have 30% of their funding, after which the completed projects will be displayed at the Venice Immersive exhibition itself.

Reilhac also discussed their approach to ‘The Immersive World of Venice’ in VRChat. “This is something we really want to promote. The idea is that these personal world builders create worlds on social platforms, primarily VRChat. in just a few weeks. It’s amazing what they can achieve in such a short time.” Rosenthal supports this and highlights Fins, the creator Complex 7as an example.

The idea started during the COVID-19 lockdown when travel restrictions were imposed, then partnered with Viveport and Meta. “Our VRChat world became a meeting place for all the directors, we did a Q&A session there. We took it a step further next year and started the World Showcase with a world hopping feature.”

Reilhac calls VRChat “the vanguard of today’s creativity and says that “the most exciting creative developments in immersive art for us happen there.”

Rosenthal explains that they were both inspired by what was happening in VRChat. “We spent a lot of time on it, my social and entertainment life was all in VRChat. We realized some of the most exceptional creativity was happening on the platform, we started realized this was a new form of art and entertainment. Because we had such great experiences, we decided to introduce this into Venice Immersive.”

I also asked if the couple had any special experiences they recommended. Reilhac calls this a difficult question, comparing the broader product line to a large collection, like creating a restaurant menu. “The experiences are very different, but the connection is established by the fact that we have collected them in one version. The collection has its own personality, I wouldn’t put one above the other.”

With so much diversity on display, I asked them which branches of immersive experiences they see gaining traction in the future. Reilhac pointed to mixed reality, calling the pass-through features of the upcoming Apple Vision Pro headset interesting.

Rosenthal highlights Gargoyle Doyle as an example of mixed reality, although she believes headsets need more time to become popular.

I think it will take a while until headphones are developed enough to become common in our lives. Vision Pro is extremely important because of the way [Apple] located it, which makes it easier for people to understand what it could be. But it will take a long time to get these seamless experiences.

Venice Immersive runs from August 30 to September 9, 2023 and will return next year.

Hands-on: Empereur shows the emotional potential of narrative VR

Empereur at Venice Immersive brings an emotional story. Our impression: