The Tribeca Immersive Awesome List 2021
This year Tribeca Immersive, as its XR (VR, AR, and allied technologies) section is called, was distinguished by its hybrid format. The five titles in its Storyscapes competition can be seen in the physical world at the 50 Varick Street location in New York’s Tribeca neighborhood. There are also twelve titles in its “virtual arcade,” hosted by the Museum of Other Realities (MOR) inside VR. These are ticketed, but there are another dozen free mobile AR experiences that can be seen anywhere with a smartphone. The new format, forced by the pandemic, has had a democratizing effect on the festival, making the works far more accessible to far more people than ever before.
This year was distinguished by the overarching themes of racism, social justice, mental health, the environment, and much less about entertainment than previous years. It has been said many times that VR is an “empathy machine” that will allow viewers to literally walk in another’s shoes. Indeed, all the titles in Storyscapes fall into these categories, and each has something important to say about its subject.
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In Tribeca’s Virtual Arcade inside the PC only MOR, we found the first of our most awesome experiences, “The Changing Same,” from Scatter and Rada Studio. Scatter has been in the festival previously with the first most awesome experience “Blackout” (2017). Directors Yasmin Elayat (“Zero Days VR”), Michèle Stephenson, and Joe Brewster, used Depthkit Studio, a portable multi-camera volumetric capture solution, to create a new version of reality: a dreamlike version of the physical world, where time and location melt into an infinite pop culture whirlwind, to tells the terrifying story of how the law is used to convict a man already the victim of racism before he is even accused. What the hapless Kafka-esque hero is accused of, no one knows, and no one cares. When you’re black, and a cop decides you have a bad attitude, it is the end of your life or, if you’re lucky, life as you know it. The system takes over. And there’s not a damn thing you can say or do. Submit, and be smothered. Or don’t submit, and be smothered. You can cry out at the rude irony, you can laugh at it, you can ridicule it, fight, or not fight. It doesn’t matter. Because you don’t matter. The end is brutally preordained. I am still thinking about this piece. I walked in this guy’s shoes. And I didn’t like it one bit. And that is the most awesome thing I experienced at Tribeca this year. This is the first in a three part series that will eventually be available in the Oculus store.
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Nonny de la Pena’s Emblematic Group, the pioneer of empathetic VR, presents A Life in Pieces: The Diary of Stanley Hayami, which brings to life the wartime diary of Stanley Hayami, a Japanese-American teenager imprisoned with his family during WWII. It was produced with Japanese American National Museum, which will be exhibiting the piece.
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Not exactly AR, nor VR, though interactive, is “Republique,” an interactive mobile phone movie from France, directed by Simon Bouisson. We see a terrorist attack on the Paris Metro, seemingly live streamed by three victims, who are getting reactions and comments from anonymous people watching them remotely. It is a surprising and jarring way to tell a story that reflects how we are creators, commenters and consumers of social media narratives. And despite all the information we have at our disposal, we still can’t see the big picture as it unfolds in real time.
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Finally, there is for me one piece that truly characterizes Tribeca Immersive this year: the elegiac simplicity of “Breonna's Garden”, by the artists Lady PheOnix (sic) and Sutu. By now, everyone knows the tragic story of Breonna Taylor, a young black EMT mistakenly murdered by the Louisville Police in a drug bust gone bad. Although the city paid the family $12 M to compensate for their deadly blunder, no one has been held responsible. Breonna, erased as a person, has become a symbol of our society’s failed, racist approach to policing. This tribute, created in collaboration with her sister, allows us to connect with the person who was loved and lost. “Breonna’s Garden” allows the viewer to plant an interactive flower in a virtual garden to her memory while reminding us she never wanted to be a symbol. Breonna was a person with a family, friends, achievements and dreams. Anyone with a smartphone can download it and contribute to her memory.
“The creators are responding to very real issues that have been bubbling up for a long time in our world. They’re creatively using the medium to address topics like mental health and racial equity in surprising and entertaining ways,” Hammonds told me. “What’s been most inspiring about curating this edition are the ways in which we’re expanding the definition of Immersive entertainment, with outdoor AR installations, immersive audio storytelling and so much more.”
See the full story here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/charliefink/2021/06/17/the-tribeca-immersive-awesome-list-2021/?sh=2b24348349c8
