SUNDANCE VR AND AR GOT EXTREMELY WEIRD IN 2020
BEST CONCEPT: BREATHE
(DIEGO GALAFASSI)
The medium: Magic Leap mixed reality headsets with biometric sensors.
The premise: Four people put on mixed reality headsets and step into an empty space. Sensors estimate when they’re breathing, then visualize the air they exhale as a cloud of light — mixing with the breaths of the other participants and then drifting into the ether. And the whole system is set in a larger context by some soothing narration about air (and Earth’s larger ecosystem) from Zazie Beetz.
MOST INEXPLICABLY COMPELLING: SCARECROW
(JIHYUN JUNG, SNGMOO LEE, TAEWAN JEONG, COOPER YOO)
The medium: Full-body virtual reality — plus a physically present dancer, a thermal hand plate that simulates touching hot and cold objects, and a scanner that digitizes an image of your face. It’s a lot.
The premise: A New Frontier pamphlet gave Scarecrow a one- or two-sentence synopsis about reawakening creativity in artists, or something similarly vague. This turned out to be nonsense, because Scarecrow is about dancing with a scarecrow whose heart has been stolen by a large mythological bird.
See all the mentioned installations here: https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/7/21125284/sundance-best-vr-ar-film-festival-new-frontier-2020