A Trip to Hollowland

Chenshan Gao, Zhe Wang

A collective virtual travel experience to a demolished hybrid city.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1dzGYtBB28cHXnPIPUxCAbiDFg7YJktH2km6Ct5dngBM/edit#slide=id.p

Description

Hollowland is a surreal cityscape that draws inspiration from both ancient and modern city planning. It incorporates elements like existing landmarks, everyday objects as well universal travel destinations.

Classes

Desert of the Real: Deep Dive into Social VR

Axolotl – A Social VR Experience

Guillermo Montecinos, Lydia Jessup

A human and an axolotl – an amphibian native to Mexico – meet face to face, separated by the glass of an aquarium. Fascinated by each other, they learn to communicate and eventually, turn into one another.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z5LiaRY-oI9I1Z4OlpVj7dTlpeg-Nmkj/view?usp=sharing

Description

Axolotl is a social VR experience inspired by the short story by Julio Corázar (of the same name) that allows two immersants to embody a human and an axolotl in a trip where the notions of identity and embodiment may not be as logical as expected.

Each immersant starts as one of the characters – the axolotl inside the aquarium or the human on the outside of the glass. A narrator takes them through a story based on Cortazar's magical realism short story – each from their own perspective. The immersants are able to look at each other and gesture across the glass using their VR controllers. By interacting in this way, the immersants can triggers a process in which they begin to turn into one another. When the transition has completed, they have swapped places, embodying the other character on the other side of the glass. The piece concludes with a final narration concluding the story.

Our goal with this piece is to explore the idea of identity and challenge the human/non-human binary. This project uses the affordances of the VR medium to break rules of time and space and to make the immersants consider their humanity and their reality in a different way through new forms of communication.

Video here: https://vimeo.com/377330942

Classes

Desert of the Real: Deep Dive into Social VR

Between Us

Louise Lessel, Shu-Ju Lin

A collaborative game experience where strangers come together to explore their relationship with each other by sharing and challenging their personal spaces and boundaries

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1sSg3WURm4XdTzWylHoDSppSni5wmPgzqfFsOwbAR67o/edit?usp=sharing

Description

How much are you willing to open up to people you just met? The whole experience is to let two complete strangers explore the space they are willing to share with the other person. In these 5-10 minutes experience, two players work together to unlock puzzles. The puzzles are represented in the form of key and keyholes. Players navigate themselves by browsing each others body and finding the right keys. They should be willing to share something intimate about themselves if they got unlock.

Classes

Desert of the Real: Deep Dive into Social VR

Artifice

, Hayk Mikayelyan, Tanic Nakpresha

Social VR experience to distinguish between human and robots

https://docs.google.com/presentation/u/2/d/1PYyETPCao5GIqK0vQ5RPHVwYYNwpqSeyAqz4aZWj86M/edit?usp=drive_web&ouid=113342889847642965963

Description

We would like to test if humans can be replaced by machines in the future.

By creating an entertaining turing test VR experience to empower the connection between two strangers. Particularly, prove that human can sense the synergy from another human being. Cultivate human authenticity in the new era of raising machines

Classes

Desert of the Real: Deep Dive into Social VR