HACKING XR

Released: January 2016 Creators: Arnaud Colinart, Amaury La Burthe, Peter Middleton, James Spinney Format: 360 experience, 25min Viewing System: Gear VR, Oculus Notes on Blindness is a 360 immersive experience on what it feels like to go blind. The experience is guided by the audio diaries developed by theologist John Hull as a way to express his feelings and frustrations with regard to going blind. It is divided into various sections that explore Hull’s change on perception

Creator: Philipp Maas, Dominik Stockhausen, and Alexander Mass Platform: Samsung Gear VR Sonar is an ominous story set in the caverns of a foreign planet. It was created for Gear VR at the Filmakademie Braden Württemberg under the direction of Philipp Maas. Although the experience is not interactive, Maas successfully immerses the viewer through four techniques: 1) providing consistent audio and visual depth 2) cutting only when non-invasive solutions were feasible 3) introdu

Creator: Aurel Manea Productions VR Technology : 3D Parallax Photography Viewing System : Samsung Gear VR Aurel Manea is a photographer and a technical editor, and he combines these two passions to create fantastic virtual reality displays of his impressive work. In Window to the World, Manea showcases his best landscape pictures with a stunning 3D effect, created manually from original 2D photographs using a spin on traditional parallax techniques. The application is set in

Creator: Presence Labs Platform: Samsung Gear VR / Oculus Rift GrooVR is a VR music visualizer created by Presence Labs. I personally tried the app on the Samsung Gear. When the application loads you find yourself in a space-like scene with purple mountains and geometric shapes on the floor filled with bright purples, pinks, and blues. The music playing in the start menu is really intense electronica. The stars and specs in the sky are moving rapidly to the beat and the color

Creator: Mac Platform: Samsung Gear VR Release Date: April 19, 2015 Expressionism in painting has existed for more than one hundred years. It was an artistic stepping stone in terms of expressing meaning and emotion in a scene. The art viewing process has been two dimensional and linear for a long time. VR enhances the experience by allowing you to focus on the art without the museum around you. Art museums lead you chronologically through an artist’s work. “The Night Cafe” V

Guardian News and Media Release date: April 27, 2016 VR technology: CGI Viewing System: Samsung Gear VR Imagine if you had to spend days, months, or even years in solitary confinement. What would you do with your time? How would you change as a human being? 6x9 is a virtual reality experience created by The Guardian to educate people about the physical and mental states of being in solitary confinement. Since the individual is alone when they’re in solitary confinement, virtu

Release Date: April 16th, 2016 Creators: Sandy Smolan, James Nestor Viewed on: Samsung Gear VR Type: 360 Video When choosing from the many different VR projects to review, I was most excited by “The Click Effect” by Sandy Smolan of the New York Times. I am a sucker for bringing the camera to odd locations, and the documentary promises to take the viewer off dry land and into the deep ocean. Inspired by the book Deep, “The Click Effect” strives to connect the viewer with the b