An NYU Research Project Is Trying to Make Virtual Reality Less Lonely
“Holojam is a set of practical experiments to prototype a future that does not yet exist,” said Ken Perlin, principal investigator of Holojam.
We’re interested, not about when it’s cutting edge and exciting, but when it’s boring.”
“Seeing somebody in VR gives you a sense of them that you don’t get from video,” explains Lobser, who’s done all of the art for Holojam so far. “The way that they express themselves becomes more cartoony. Certain things are simplified, and certain things are amplified.”
In virtual reality, he demonstrated by switching from leg to leg, balancing on each. There’s not much subtlety possible in here, which lends itself to more extravagant gestures. He offers me a high five, which is his favorite way to blow the minds of the uninitiated; making physical contact with something you can see in virtual reality is, I can confirm, wild.
While the team works on Holojam in some form throughout the week, Thursdays are the most exciting time. From 5:00 to 8:00 on Thursday evenings, graduate students and faculty gather in one of NYU’s computer science buildings to talk, plan, code and occasionally just hang out in virtual reality. Running a project with this many volunteers can be messy—I haven’t been inside the development of Sony’s PlayStation VR, but I expect it’s different than the consensus-run meetings of Holojam.
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