The Imperial Crown and other VR experiences at the World VR Forum

The World VR Forum was, as reported, very international. In addition to the high-calibre speakers at the conference, there were numerous projects at the festival from all over the world. The artists behind them all wanted to win one of the coveted prizes:

Imperial Crown

Best Interactivity - Best Photography - Best Story - Best Documentary - Best User Experience - Best Acting - Best Sound Design - Best CGI

There was also a special prize for education and innovation. There were too many to visit them all. But I was able to take away a few impressions.

From depressive...

The so-called Imperial Crown - i.e. the main prize - was won by After Solitary - a very depressing piece. The documentary tells a true story about an inmate of the US State Prison. It shows in a depressing way how he lived in seclusion in his cell and how he continued to have severe problems after he was released. Although the story was very gripping, I was personally surprised that it won, as in my opinion there were better things to see in terms of VR.

https://www.facebook.com/frontline/videos/10154218261731641/

For an equally depressing theme and a rather boring VR experience, the Italian production Lost Memories take a look inside. The poetic project draws attention to the countless refugees trying to reach Europe via the Mediterranean.

... to the colourful, psychedelic VR world

The music animation offered the pure opposite Chocolate - also from an American house. The artist has reached deep into the colour pot and the bag of tricks and has made cats dance around you in an orderly hullabaloo. The psychedelic video was praised by many. From the same artist - no less colourful - was the Mini Game Waba. In the game, you had to wake up and feed a cute flabby little guy. The game was reminiscent of Tamagotchi.

Lending a hand together

You could get a little creative yourself at HanaHana. The Swiss project from French-speaking Switzerland allowed visitors to help shape the virtual world. They could use the controllers to place an unlimited number of hands in chains or individually in the post-apocalyptic desert landscape. The cool thing was that the creations remained in each case and so all visitors had created a joint work by the end of the forum. Incidentally, the idea comes from a manga called One Piece.

Art in many facets

Again, rather passively - apart from turning your head - you were a viewer of Las Meninas of Velasquez. The VR artwork from France immerses the viewer in a picture and asks him, along with a few other philosophical and artistic questions, who is looking at whom.

The exhibitors at Beyond the Typhoon The Swiss project let the visitors walk around the room with the headset, but apart from motion sickness, the benefit of the movement was zero. However, the project from Switzerland impressed me with its graphics. The artists had a mirror dancing around in VR, which was constantly deforming. The link to the supposedly dreamlike Chinese Gulangyu Islands, which were destroyed by Typhoon Meranti, I honestly didn't see that directly.

I found the artistic short film very exciting The Other Dakar from Senegal, in which a little girl decides to explore the invisible Dakar. The 360° film showed many curious characters and left the impression that there must be an exciting art scene in Dakar.