Tribeca: VR Documentary ‘Vestige’ Explores Love & Loss
Premiered earlier this week at the Tribeca Immersive Virtual Arcade, Vestige is a nonfiction room-scale VR journey through the memories of Lisa Elin as she recalls both the best and worst moments of her time with Erik.
Starting my experience in a pitch black void, Lisa’s narration began to illuminate my surrounding as fragments of her past memories were manifested as moving images via colorful volumetric capture. As the multi-narrative journey continues, more memories are unlocked, activating new pathways through Lisa’s memory as she recalls her defining moments with Erik.
“Initially, when I got to speaking with Lisa, it was really research for a fictional piece,” spoke the project’s director Aaron Bradbury in an interview with VRScout. “It was probably the third interview in, and our interviews were really quite long (between 3-5 hours), and I had cut together bits of each interview and had started building a narrative and started to kind of understand how a multi-narrative would work within it.
Eventually however the good times end and we’re lead to the sobering conclusion of the experience that culminates in Erik’s tragic death. All of this visualized, thanks to some impressive use of volumetric capture and a whole bunch of green screen.
Vestige is much more than just a VR experience. The full installation presented on the Tribeca show floor consists of three main areas designed to keep the user immersed before and after they put on the headset.
Composed of two layers of projection mapped semi-transparent surfaces using 4 different HD projectors, the “pre-experience” surrounds the user in a colorful LED sphere capable of casting their shadow onto the screens depending on their physical position. This gives the user an external connection to the art piece as well as a visual spectacle for spectators on the show floor. Most interestingly however are the conventional telephones dangling from the installation by their cords. Each of which are playing an audio recording of a previous user recalling their own memories of lost loved ones.
Finally there’s the “post-experience.” A powerful look into the passionate recollections of Lisa’s fondest memories, Vestige was a real tear-jerker on the show floor.
Vestige was a joint effort by immersive studio NSC Creative, VR firm Atlas V, VR network Kaleidoscope, Other Set and musician Starkey.