Immersive Arts Lab 9 ‘ Avatars And The Virtual Worlds We Live In’ April 22nd, 5pm GMT….
REGISTER FOR THIS EVENT https://hopin.com/events/immersive-arts-lab-9-avatars-and-the-digital-worlds-we-live-in
‘Avatars and the digital worlds we live in’
April 22nd from 5pm GMT —
In this lab we explore the arts and entertainment field of avatars and the digital arts and entertainment spaces that they create, perform, socialise and play games in, and also give participants access to a virtual club and art space via FreepartyVR (Access 2 hours before the event, during and also 2 hours after, via Oculus Quest — Side Quest or Via web browser)
Why are we running this lab?
Artists such as Lil Nas performed as an avatar in the social/video game hybrid Roblox in the fall of 2020, enabling Generation Z to attend a virtual gig while in covid 19 lockdown.
Over 30 million attended this Roblox premiere performance — intriguingly, we know about Lil Nas, but who are these 30 million audience members? For one, they are not passive consumers, instead they are creative individuals, video game players and digital natives — pioneers of the early metaverse, web 3.0.
Its time to adjust the spotlight slightly, and learn more about the avatars of these virtual worlds…
With Social VR spaces such as Horizon by Facebook/Oculus, RecRoom, Altspace, Sansar, Decentraland, Sandbox, Fortnite and Roblox creator modes to name just a few, these platforms make up this multi-billion dollar industry, which sits in-between the video game industry and a new form of social media.
The aim of this lab is to take the participant over five hours on a deep dive into this world of the virtual metaverse — to meet the creators and their creations, and to create a dialogue between participant and expert speaker.
The lab has been curated into 4 topics, with a range of guests invited to share their knowledge with you, Guest Biography and contact info at the bottom of this page.
Part 1: Past to the Future of Avatars
The lab will open with a special keynote and Q+A with Dr Jacquelyn Ford Morie, who began her VR Career in 1990.
Morie has amongst her many projects, created a virtual world ecosystem for NASA called ANSIBLE. This was created as R+D to enable Astronauts on the up-coming Mars Missions to stay connected with Earth via virtual worlds and avatars.
Mories talk is entitled ‘The Ultimate Selfie Redux Who are your Avatars? Are we all evolving to become Virtual Humans of some form?.
This opening conversation explores concepts around who we are in this digital age and what it might mean for humanity in the future.
This will be followed by a session led by Graham Shacknell, performance arts practitioner with over 25 years’ experience.
Graham was trained in masked performance styles, commedia dell’ arte by Antonio Fava at his international school in Reggio Emilia, Italy, and noh by Akira Matsui and Dr Ashley Thorpe from the Kita school of noh.
Graham has a degree in Archaeology and Anthropology, specialising in the archaeology of performance; he is also a professional field archaeologist working with Oxford Archaeology.
I have asked Graham to speak to explore the consequences and opportunities of creating Avatars in a virtual world as representations of us. What can we learn from our ancient past and the human need for masks both literal and metaphorical. Graham is uniquely placed to understand this, as a theatre performance practitioner and a qualified researcher in Archaeology and Anthropology.
From here it is time to meet some creators, and find out what they are making, how they are doing it and why.
Part 2: Avatars and the digital worlds we live in?
Our first session will be led by Nate Barsetti a veteran of virtual worlds with over 13 year’s experience, on loan to us from Facebook Reality Labs.
Nate joined Oculus / Facebook in 2018 programming and overseeing production of all events in Oculus Venues, a large-scale Social VR event experience.
Nate will be joined by Paige Dansigner founder of Better World Museum and who is one of the leading Pre-Alpha community creators on the Facebook Horizon VR platform.
Joining the panel we also welcome Michael Nash and Artsy Marie.
Michael is 16 years old and part of a generation finding its own unique voice via world building, Michael uses RECRoom as his sandbox. Artsy Marie in her words, is ‘Co-founder of Metaculture Vr, an entertainment company founded by 10 black industry leaders, organically formed in virtual reality. MetaCultureVr provides exclusive events and experiences for the virtual reality:
“We create community and strive to close the so called, “technology gap” that has plagued the black community since the inception of the technological revolution”.
Part 3: Technical Workshops.
We will then have a series of 3 technical workshops, to show you how to create. Lasting around 20 minutes per session, each workshop gives you an introduction to the variety of ways that Avatars can be created and used in virtual worlds.
Workshop 1, led by Antonia Forster from Unity and will focus on avatar hand tracking in VR (Full details below).
Workshop 2, led by Anna Nierobisz. Anna will give an introduction to her theatre performance project Sensosis. What’s unique about Anna’s work, is that she is a theatre creative first and has learnt, over the past year, via Unity, a range of XR skills to enable her to transfer acting/theatre performance into a games engine and into VR. The project is available via SideQuest to experience.
Workshop 3, led by Ryan Garry via his company Unlimited Motion. Ryan will be showing how real time motion capture, can be performed via a mo cap suit, creating a unique character and a fully interactive 3D Avatar.
Part 4: Meet the indie creators.
The final session, will aim to expand our horizons into what indie creators are doing in this space, in the field of arts and entertainment.
The final session will be moderated by Rob Scott, who by day is part of the BBC’s ‘New Experiences’ Team, and also is chair of VR Manchester (founded 2016).
Rob will be joined by Lewis Hackett to find out what Lewis has learnt from a year of creating a VR/Game engine space for Avatars to come together, listen to music and experience art. Lewis is the creator of FreepartyVR which he will be hosting during the lab for us to experience.
Lewis will be joined by Laura aka the VR Girl who is a musical avatar creation. VR Girl is a talk show host, Vtuber, producer and musician and has, over the past 3 years built up a following by experimenting with avatar creation across a variety of platforms.
The final guest, is Tina Wheeler, a world builder in Facebook Horizon, who discovered VR in 2019 and predominantly has for the past 14 years worked in education with elementary school students with dyslexia. She has taken these insights, into Horizon, to develop virtual worlds and meeting places for people to find out more about Dyslexia.
And so, that’s a whistle stop tour of what to expect. This event is hosted on the hopin app, which gives plenty of chances to network one to one with each other, and chat with everyone at the lab in the ‘chat’ during the events.
FreepartyVR will also be open for everyone to explore 2 hours prior to the event, during the event and also for 2 hours after the event, and Lewis, its creator, will be on hand to answer any questions on the virtual space that he built to keep the free party scene alive during lockdown, via VR or by your Browser (instructions and login details will be posted to ticket holders a few days prior to the event)
Speakers Biographical information
Dr. Jacquelyn Ford Morie is widely known for using technology such as Virtual Reality (VR) to deliver meaningful experiences that enrich people’s lives. Starting in 1990, she developed multi-sensory techniques for VR that predictably elicit emotional responses from participants, for example inventing a scent collar that can deliver aromas to a participant within an immersive experience. She is also active in social VR spaces and through her company All These Worlds, LLC, has been bringing her techniques to these worlds for Mindfulness applications, storytelling and stress relief. She created a virtual world ecosystem called ANSIBLE for NASA that was designed to provide psychological benefits for future astronauts destined to undertake extremely long isolated missions to Mars, which included a way to record one’s avatar in action for later replay. Dr. Morie’s other research interests include how avatars, identity and play in immersive spaces can positively affect our human nature. Dr Morie is currently both a sought-after educator in immersive media and serves as senior advisor to the XPRIZE’s ANA Avatar Prize, which challenges teams to create a robotic avatar people can inhabit from a distance. Her new 22-chapter book, co-edited with Kate McCallum, The Handbook of Research on the Global Impacts and Roles of Immersive Media, was published in early 2020. Some of her work and images from VR and her extensive Art career can be found at her website morie.org
Founder Chief Scientist, All These Worlds, LLC alltheseworldsllc.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jacquelyn-jacki-morie-3a73543/
The Performance Mask: full-body synthesis and metamorphosis
Graham Shackell is a performance arts practitioner with over 25 years’ experience. Alongside running his own company, ‘Sometime Soon Arts’, he is a regular collaborator with international site–specific performance company ‘Periplum’. Graham was trained in masked performance styles, commedia dell’ arte by Antonio Fava at his international school in Reggio Emilia, Italy, and noh by Akira Matsui and Dr Ashley Thorpe from the Kita school of noh. Graham has a degree in Archaeology and Anthropology, specialising in the archaeology of performance; he is also a professional field archaeologist working with Oxford Archaeology. Graham has made a study of mask utilising a multi-scalar approach, with a combined epistemology and methodology derived from the fields of archaeology, anthropology (and ethnography), and performance studies; alongside a performative analysis and experimental archaeology research practice.
Nate Barsetti
A veteran of virtual worlds for over 13 years, Nate got his start with online communities at Linden Lab, supporting virtual landowners in Second Life. After helping to launch and operate the OnLive Cloud Gaming platform (think Google Stadia, but nearly 10 years ago), Nate transitioned to digital distribution of music and films as a member of the BitTorrent Bundles team, which proved that Torrent files could be legally monetized. In 2015, Nate joined AltspaceVR where he pioneered live events on the platform and was the driving force behind the first live music performances in Social VR. Following Altspace’s acquisition by Microsoft, Nate became the VR producer for the comedian and musician, Reggie Watts. In 2018 he joined Oculus/Facebook, programming and overseeing production of all events in Oculus Venues, a large-scale Social VR event experience.
Paige Dansinger is the founder of Better World Museum, recognized by Facebook as one of the Top 117 Global Community Leaders (2018–2019). The museum’s mission is to use creative tech to dissolve isolation and feelings of powerlessness to create more resilient individuals, groups, and communities. With a focus on teens, women, and diverse leadership development, Better World Museum has presented at the WHO, TED, Facebook’s Global Wellness & Safety Summit, Nobel Peace Prize, Singapore, Shenzhen, Beijing, and more.
Paige is a Pre-Alpha Community Creator in the new social world-building program Facebook Horizon. Her immersive Climate Exhibit “How do Bees Make Honey” is featured on the product’s intro video. Horizon Art Museum is an ever-expanding museum created with primitive shapes. Over 16 interactive immersive gallery-worlds recreates museum works by Women Artists. The museum is a site for social action with an impactful +Community Amplify Voices Program, and was the site of a VR Women MeetUp hosted by Facebook.
Paige Dansinger Better World Museum
My name is Michael Nash, I am currently 16 who builds and teaches other virtual people through Rec Room. I also really like to socialise with other individuals through VR
I have played Rec Room since 2017 when it was first introduced to PlayStation VR. Rec Room has changed me from becoming so blique with my social skills to becoming the person who I am now.
I’ll be talking about now Virtual Reality has changed me as a person and how it can heavily contribute to a better social life and can be a way to unlock many skills such as building and Virtual Classrooms.
Instagram buildings portfolio — @8_the_donuts
Artsy Marie
Virtual Reality World Designer, Illustrator, Photographer, Serial Entrepreneur.
Owner of “Artsy in VR” where I am curating and pioneering a luxurious lifestyle as an architect and realtor in virtual reality. I’ve built over 50 virtual worlds for people to experience. Beautiful lofts, penthouses, yachts, party buses, private islands, private jets and much much more. These worlds are hosted on AltspaceVR, a social VR app. www.Patreon.com/ArtsyInVR
Co-founder of Metaculture Vr, an entertainment company founded by 10 black industry leaders, organically formed in virtual reality. MetaCultureVr provides exclusive events and experiences for the virtual reality . We create community and strive to close the so called, “technology gap” that has plagued the black community since the inception of the technological revolution. www.Metaculture.co
Art Boutique: www.prettydarnartsy.com
Photography: www.stacimarie.com
Spiritual Mentorship: www.thespiritgarden.info
Anna is a Polish-British artist based in Birmingham who works across a spectrum of media: Theatre, Film, and Virtual Reality. Central to her work is the aim of bringing the authenticity, excitement, and experience of live performances into the Virtual Reality environments. For this purpose, she works with the latest motion capture technologies and applies her knowledge of creating immersive theatre and storytelling into the XR media.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Sensosis-Virtual-Reality-110342563823004
Twitter: @ANierobisz
Instagram: sensosis_vr
website:https://www.sensosis.co.uk
Antonia is an XR Technical Specialist at Unity, with a decade of experience in public speaking, and several years of experience developing XR applications. She works across industry verticals, from automotive to architecture; creating demos, delivering talks, and using XR to push the boundaries of what’s possible.
Organisation bio: Unity is the world’s leading platform for creating and operating interactive, real-time 3D (RT3D) content. We empower creators, across industries and around the world.
Talk Title: Hand-Tracking in XR with Unity
Summary: A high-level overview of the different XR hand-tracking solutions that Unity supports, as well as a demo of how to set up hand-tracking in your own Unity scene, game or application — no previous experience needed!
Antonia
Antonia Forster
XR Technical Specialist (Industry) at Unity Technologies | TEDx Speaker and Mentor
Tweet: @AntoniaRForster | Web: www.antoniaforster.com
Ryan Garry — Unlimited Motion Ltd is your affordable solution for performance capture, virtual production and 3D scanning. For games, animation, immersive, VFX. We raise the creative bar and reduce your overheads. You get professional expertise and experience at a rate you can afford.
This is a link to my website: www.unlimitedmotion.ltd
and my Instagram: www.instagram.com/unlimitedmotionltd
Rob Scott is the chair of the VR Manchester Community,co-organising events to bring immersive enthusiasts together since 2016. By day, he works as a User Experience Architect for BBC Design + Engineering, and has been part of the BBC’s “New Experiences” team, where he explored interaction frameworks for Augmented Reality experiences. He also planned and conducted User Research for the “BBC Civilisations” app for Magic Leap, learning that we still have a long way to go to make immersive experiences natural and usable.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/robscottsays
VR Girl
Laura (The VR Girl) is focusing on perfecting the craft of producing music in Tranzient VR. Tranzient is a virtual reality application for full music production, visuals, and recording avatars developed by Jim Simons, founder of Alive in Tech.
- Training DOB Recording Studio how to produce music in VR and they are building the VR music production pipeline.
- Top VR content creator and VR live streamer. She works with agencies to provide quality content to video sharing platforms.
- Organized and hosted virtual events for top studios.
Coaches top VR streamers and consults with app developers on how to improve their content and user experience.
Lewis Hackett — Director, Prefix Studios
Lewis is a film maker, animator and game developer based in Bradford. Through his company Prefix Studios, he has developed many immersive experiences for audio visual installations (Figure-Ground: Reality Revision, SanctumVR), interactive VR for social impact (Lutopia), realtime virtual production (Warlock Final Blow), and most recently explored online social VR music events as a response to the 2020 COVID lockdowns (freepvrty). Outside of Prefix Studios he does freelance motion graphics as Hackmans, taught Digital Imaging and Visual Literacy at the University of Bradford (2014–2016), worked for Digital Identity company Yoti within the cryptocurrency space (2017–2019) and is part of the Deadstream art collective.
FreepartyVR — https://freepvrty.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/freepvrty — art and visuals https://www.facebook.com/thedeadstream
Tina Wheeler
World Builder in Facebook Horizon (invite only Beta)
Dyslexia Interventionist
Chasing What’s Good, Production Company
I had my first experience with VR in 2019 at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas at the VR/AR expo. After putting on a few VR headsets, I was amazed by the experiences, and purchased an Oculus Quest. My first social VR experiences as an Avatar was in Oculus Venues and Altspace. In September 2020, I was invited to Facebook Horizon and found a creative outlet in world building. I believe dyslexia to be an advantage in world building with 3D shapes. I have found community in Facebook Horizon and feel encouraged to collaborate with others as an avatar creator.
I am a Dyslexia Interventionist at a public school in Flower Mound, Texas, USA. I’ve worked in education for the past fourteen years with elementary school students. I’m dyslexic myself and was identified at the age of ten, in the fifth grade. I enjoy encouraging others with dyslexia.
Our production company, Chasing What’s Good, produces feature and short films. Join us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/chasingwhatsgoodmedia.
A few of Tina Wheeler’s Facebook Horizon Worlds:
Winter Cabin (live stream)
https://www.facebook.com/tmwheeler1/videos/10222011159260965/?d=n
Winter Cabin World link:
https://oculus.com/vr/3551441738317286/
Wheeler Dyslexia World Link:
https://oculus.com/vr/3905218626172077/
Wheeler Dyslexia (live Steam)
https://www.facebook.com/tmwheeler1/videos/10221961912789834
Diversity Jam 2021 Dyslexic… World Link:
https://oculus.com/vr/3631524043631989/
Sunset Beach World Link:
Sunset Beach (live stream on YouTube)
“Sunset Beach” This is a VR Women in Horizon Creator Spotlight enjoyed by Phoenix and rcdegs on 2/2/2021.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ml7zG5xA9M0
Chasing What’s Good — our Production Company
Saving the Tin Man (feature)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B08GG6BWLD/ref=atv_dp_cnc_0_0
Bending in the Wind (award winning short)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-msSdvHrC3Y
A Fall from Grace (soon to be released short)
Trailer — https://youtu.be/4OB9XR_Lb_U
Future Artists was founded in 2009 by Mark Ashmore with the mission statement ‘without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible’ — Frank Zappa — this should sum us up!
We work as a socially conscious group of creatives in an open arts collective framework to make film, theatre, video games, virtual reality and live events. In 2017 we founded the Future Artists Immersive Arts Lab so we could learn..
Immersive Arts Lab
Immersive Arts Lab (IAL) was created to give access to Virtual Reality equipment and the computing power to create in Virtual Reality to a diverse set of creatives. At the time this kit was £3000 per unit, out of the reach for most of us, but collectively we could make it happen. HTC Vive donated 3 headsets and Coolermaster donated 3 computers and we ran labs from 2017 to 2020.
7 IAL sprints, which are creative happenings, ran over 3 days, in small working groups in various venues in Manchester. Each lab produced a range of videos which can be viewed here — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogni6e26er0
The IAL hangs out in-between labs on social media, gathering around our Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1537457282955910
The Facebook page is where you will find daily updates from the core group sharing and discussing everything happening in the Immersive Arts world.
The IAL 8 was born out of these discussions on the creative future of the Metaverse and how we can all be involved.
tickets here https://hopin.com/events/immersive-arts-lab-9-avatars-and-the-digital-worlds-we-live-in
