January (Special Event - Art in VR)

UPDATE 1/21/18

Just wanted to cordially welcome Tanya James and the internet of fashion meetup to our event. They were looking for a venue and we thought it would be a great opportunity to combine forces for the evening. Check out her group at the following link and I look forward to connecting and learning a thing or two about fashion from her members! https://www.meetup.com/Internet-of-Fashion-Meetup/

UPDATE 1/19/18

This event continues to GROW!!!

We have added a bunch of additional demo's (see revised descriptions below) and the VR company INCEPTION has very graciously offered to sponsor pizza and soda.

The doors will open at 6pm.

At 7pm, I'm planning a short introduction speech, a few words from our sponsors ("Two Trees" & "Inception") and then one of our tiltbrush artists Micah has put together a 15 minute feature performance piece with a music/DJ, our friends from Jump Into the Light and our friends from Pop Up Gaming. The rest of the evening will be open demo and networking time.

(I'm really looking forward to this one!)

*** Original Post below has been updated***

I am thrilled to share the details of this amazing event.

Thanks to our host and sponsor (Two Trees Management Co.) we have secured the perfect venue to have an evening of open demo's of the very best "Art in VR (and AR) in NYC. Below is our long list of demo's and special thanks to all of the organizations involved with helping to put together this event including:

HTC, The Glimpse Group, Jump Into The Light, Pop Up Gaming, Art and Technology Committee of the National Arts Club, Bertnstein & Andriulli, Made in NY Media Center by IFP, and Dumbo BID

Tilt Brush:

Melissa McDonald

“Congruence” is an abstract VR music video experience created by Melissa McDonald in collaboration with Efrain Aguilar. It’s original design was constructed utilizing Google’s Tilt Brush with animations done in Unity. The work was made to EDM producer STRBX’s song “Congruence” featuring vocalist ONEIRIC (Melissa’s own electronic music persona). The sculpture is meant to be a visual representation about leaving “our world” for a “better one”, one that may not be fully constructed but is always becoming.

Will Roberts

Will Roberts is a VR Director, artist and immersive experience designer at Augmented Pictures, a Harlem based immersive design and animation studio. Will will be performing a live VR Painting of a scene from "Blk Boy Joy", the prologue from his upcoming 2018 mixed reality exhibition.

His longtime interest has been exploring the intersection between technology, folklore and the human experience. Will holds an MFA in 3D Animation and Sound Art. He has worked in animation, VFX, film and in the technology industry for over a decade. In 2009 he got his start in VR as a entrepreneur, researcher and virtual world builder in the popular VR platform “SecondLife”. Shortly after that, while working at the intersection of technology and storytelling, Will was tasked with working alongside New York Times Bestselling authors to design interactive story experiences for the digital publishing industry.

LaJuné McMillian

Clarity is a Virtual Reality experience exploring the stages of inner healing. The user is transported to an ethereal particle universe, where they interact with Clarity, a being of divination. LaJuné McMillian is a New Media Artist and Creative Technologist from NYU's Integrated Digital Media Program. LaJuné is currently creating art that integrates Performance, Virtual Reality, and Physical Computing to question our current use of technology and forms of communication. They have had the opportunity to show and speak about their work at, Dance on Camera at Lincoln Center, MakerFaire, National Sawdust, Liberty Science Center, Chelsea Film Festival, Creative Tech Week and Weird Reality. They are also the Lead Character Animator for NeuroSpeculative Afrofeminism which premiered at Sundance Film Festival and is currently touring at festivals including SXSW and Tribeca Film Festival.

Micah404

Micah404 is a New York based VR artist and member of the collective ART404, he gained notoriety in 2015 as a 2d illustrator with his instagram project @micahnotfound. He has since jumped headfirst into VR illustration, working full time in the medium over the past year. With the help of his collective ART404 he is pushing the boundries of VR painting as performance art. He creates loose narratives that combine elements of VR illustration, performance art and music festival style stage visuals, the end result being a rowdy first of it's type experience.

AR Art:

Doodlematic - Alfred Doyle

Doodlematic is a revolutionary app which enables a person to draw a game level on paper, take a picture of the created level, then play the level you created on your device. The app is primarily targeted for kids from age 6 to early teens. Because it combines the physical and virtual world, Doodlematic is the perfect app to introduce concepts such as color and shape recognition, spatial awareness and basic game design concepts.

Natalia Doster

ARtist viewer is a technology, allowing visual artists to exhibit their work in augmented reality: create site-specific exhibitions, technology-inspired installations or juxtapositions of art and its inspirations or references. It also allows potential collectors to preview artwork in their collections or interior design.

Charity Everett

Go Back Fetch It is a project about the origins of humanity and how we all exist today because of what our shared ancestry was able to accomplish long ago. At its core, what makes us all human is our ability to keep fighting and innovating while ensuring a future for the next generation.

Music:

Daniel Sabio

The Glad Scientist is an Atlanta-based audiovisual artist utilizing the HTC Vive to perform innovative live concerts. These range from conceptual movement-driven pieces on the theme of technological singularity to visually immersive pieces where brainwaves (EEG) control real-time game engines while he live composes a musical score in VR. His goal is to reveal a deeper knowing of our true selves through technology (specifically immersive ones), and believes that artistic expression is a major component of this process.

Other:

Alexandre Girardeau

Highway 101 is a VR-focused creative agency that represents visionary creators in NYC, builds a network of industry influencers, and actively participates in industry events/festivals.

Michael Deathless

Jump Into the Light is America’s first Virtual Reality Cinema Experience and Playlab. Located in the heart of Manhattan’s trendy Bowery, VR Cinema goers can view 360 virtual reality films, play immersive VR games in Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, and be 3D scanned into Virtual Reality for sharing on social media.

Looking Glass Factory - Nikki

A sci-fi dream just became real. Last month, Looking Glass (http://lookingglassfactory.com/), made up of inventors, engineers, and artists based out of an old glass factory in Greenpoint, released HoloPlayer One. This is the first interactive lightfield dev kit built for curious hologram hackers. HoloPlayer One is the interface we were promised in movies like Star Wars, Iron Man, Her, Big Hero 6 and Minority Report, through which groups of people can touch, transform and create interactive, floating, genuinely 3D words directly, without any headgear. Hope to see you in the future!

VRBar - Kishore Doddi

VRBAR is Brooklyn’s first virtual reality arcade. We love introducing people to mind-blowing VR experiences. We partner with creators to show and improve their work. We currently license over a dozen amazing room-scale experiences for the HTC Vive and have more coming soon.

PanoMoments - Dustin Kerstein

PanoMoments are a new short-form creative VR format that couple time and space. We see them eventually turning into the "GIF of VR". They can be captured either by a rotating camera, or by converting from 360 video. And unlike 360 video, they're "constrained" by this association of space which allows the creator to control exactly what the viewer sees. The resulting interactivity adds a new artistic dimension to explore - the viewer themselves plays an integral role in creating the experience as they move through both space and time.

Paul Rock -

Paul Rock is the greater of new YouTube series, CNN: Cartoon News Network. He will present and offer opportunity for attendees to make cartoons in VR. VR allows any individual to make cartoons without any animation or computer skills. While also using motion capture technology like in the movie industry to allow people to mimic and control the movement of characters through ones own body.

Hannah Schilsky – The Glimpse Group

Hannah will be presenting “On Cloud Phi” which is an immersive virtual reality musical experience based on the illusion of "The Cloud.” “The Cloud” has been cleverly named so to inspire feelings of comfort and trust as if our files are being stored in some heavenly ethereal place in the sky, while the reality is rows and rows of heat emitting hardware and wires stored in spaces based off of chicken coops for proper ventilation. This piece glorifies and pokes fun at this illusion with a dreamy cloud-scape environment and ambiance that is the stage for several mesmerizing cloud dance performances driven by motion capture.

Ryan O’koren

🚮🈚️ is a street artist.

🚮🈚️ ran research teams for Microsoft and Oculus to make VR more open to the public. He can answer any question about VR/MR/AR.

🚮🈚️ will be showing off what he's working on, and both buying and selling prints of his art.

Arjun Sahgal – Eazel

Eazel is a medium which uses virtual reality to connect the world of art and technology. Eazel uses 3D depth sensing technology to virtualize and archive art museums, art shows, and art auctions, then places the content on an online platform to be viewed with a VR device. Eazel helps museums and galleries expand to a global audiences through virtual reality technology, while also preserving exhibitions through archiving all virtual tours. Eazel's mission is to give everyone the power to experience art anywhere anytime. https://eazel.net/

Larry Chang

Larry Chang is a NYC based composer and audio designer. With a Masters degree in the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University, he has dedicated to create immersive linear and interactive audio experiences for games and Virtual Reality. His work for Construct Studio’s interactive narrative VR title, The Price of Freedom, has received various awards and honors including Runners-Up for Best Cinematic VR/ Narrative Achievement of Vision Summit (2016), and Nominee for Best VR Experience of BIG Festival (2016). Larry was also the winner of Microsoft GameOn Contest (2015), Serious Play Gold Awards (2015) and G.A.N.G. Scholar Program (2015). He was invited to host a talk at GameSound Con, the biggest Game Audio Conference in the States, talking about Audio Design for Interactive Narrative VR Experiences.

Theater:

Jenny Dorsey - Food Exhibition

All Together At Once is a VR meets immersive theatre dining experience that brings guests into a futuristic world where our everyday lives are constantly on "livestream", with no option for curation and editing. The guests and characters alike find themselves at the same dinner, interacting with edible representations of abstract problems such as economic disparity, racism and toxic masculinity. As the guests unravel the involuntary idiosyncrasies and hypocrisies of characters, they also begin to take note of their own default settings and accepted truths about themselves and society at large

Dave Lobser - Mixed Reality

Dave Lobser is a Director, CG supervisor, design, illustration, model, texture, animation, lighting, comp, code. Currently a Research Scientist under Ken Perlin at NYU's Media Research Lab. Flock is a location-based, multi-user, untethered VR experience made for large groups to interact in the same physical and virtual space. The experience is a lightly gamified music video designed to get people to move, shake and flock together. As they hunt and peck, participants become performers, both for each other and for the surrounding audience. It is the largest simultaneous VR experience ever attempted and the highest volume VR experience put on at a festival. We had over seven hundred participants in three days.

Andrew Asnes - AR App, Hamilton, Paul Taylor Dance

Round Hill VR is an immersive media company that creates, produces and distributes mixed reality content including 360º videos, virtual reality experiences and augmented reality applications. Clients and partners of the company include Oblix, CBS Interactive, Hyperloop One, Hamilton: An American Musical, The Paul Taylor Dance Company and the Children's Museum of Manhattan. Founder Andrew Asnes is also the organizer of the VR & AR Invest Meetup.