360° Passive Experiences
DeepLight One, Mark Rickard, 3m 32s
(Dome theater) From Virtuality & DeepLight Labs, take a trip inside the heart of CARL—the flagship prototype of the incredible limited-edition DeepLight 12 art piece. Watch shapes and colors transcend your visual imagination, as pulsating LEDs reflect through every angle of this exquisite infinity mirror dodecahedron. Featuring the song “Lincoln St.” by Barnacle Boi.
Dinners, Directors Ana Vijdea, Cosmin Nicoara, Romania, 20m
Eight families of Syracuse, NY, all from different ethnic backgrounds, let us join the intimate moments of their dinner time through an immersive video experience.
Don’t Forget Me, Director Ken Winikur, United States, 12m 42s
In early summer 1944, at the height of the frenzied deportation of Hungarian Jewry, fourteen-year-old George Brent, his parents, and ten-year-old brother arrived at the notorious Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. Immediately separated, George never saw his mother and brother again. The last words his father spoke to him at Auschwitz were, “Don’t forget me.”
Dream Droplets, Director Nick Rutten, Netherlands, 11m 47s
The tendrils of her dampened hair drip a comforting sound as her mind wanders elsewhere. Take a deep breath and immerse yourself in the imaginary world of Dream Droplets, hidden to the conscious mind. Travel alongside young adult Kim in this confronting dream-like fantasy, where grass grows as tall as trees and magical raindrops turn into bursting threads. Bathe in Kim’s escapist daydream and experience how her troubled subconscious clouds her mind. Take the form of a water droplet, and drift along with the poetic current of her dreamy tale.
Elephant Elephant Elephant!, Director Millie Young, Thailand, 10m
The immersive animation experience, hand drawn in 360° animation plays with our anthropomorphism of elephants, initially delighting the audience in the guise of elefunks in the circus, they then transform back into ‘real’ elephants, whose stereotypical actions appear like they are dancing and greeting each other. The illusion broken, the suspension of disbelief is exposed and signals the beginning of the elephant’s poetic escape leaving us alone in the dark.
Frozen Tears (VR-Therapy, Director Jannik Tesch, Germany,1h 16m 49s
Frozen Tears is a fiction-documentray-hybrid VR-film that portrays a group therapy session with 6 actors and a real psychotherapist. Except for the character’s biographies, everything is improvised. The film was produced at the request of the psychotherapist, Jörg Albers, who uses his own unique method of exposure therapy.
Human Art Project, Director Eve Weston, United States, 3m 15s
Human/Art/Object uses immersive media to start a conversation about objectification, the definition of art, and what it means to be human. In phase one, Food for Thought, art gallery visitors observe a 360 camera labeled as an artwork entitled “Human.” Their reactions to this designation and contradiction are captured from the point of view of the artwork by the 360 camera. In phase two, See and Be Seen, viewers put on a VR headset and experience firsthand what it feels like to be a work of art in an art gallery, examined by visitors.
Hush, Director Vibeke Bryld, Denmark, 12m
Hush is an immersive Virtual Reality experience rooted in the Northern myths of the merpeople, who lured sailors and longing souls to the sea. In Hush you will be taken on a meditative journey to the bottom of the sea. Like the lost ones of the past, you begin by the seaside. The world around you dissolves as you hear the calling from the sea, and you are submerged in a suggestive underwater world, where the distinction between reality and imagination, man and nature, disappears.
Inside COVID19, Directors Gary Yost, Adam Loften, United States, 35m 37s
Inside COVID19 is a VR journey with an American doctor, Dr. Josiah Child, battling on the front lines as the novel coronavirus spreads. Viewers go eye-to-eye with Dr. Child as he prepares emergency departments in five hospitals for the pandemic, and witness his personal struggle as the virus attacks his body and his family. This immersive documentary dives deep into how the virus spreads in the body and our population, and peels back the layers of the medical, political, and societal responses. As we near the 1-year milestone since SARS-CoV-2 first emerged, Inside COVID19 delivers a vital perspective on how far we’ve come and frames the road ahead to meet and overcome this existential challenge.
I Prevail feat. Joyner Lucas – DOA, Director Ben Proulx, United States, 4m 15s
A “VR Remix” of the original music video, featuring hi-rez band performance mixed with innovative picture-in-picture techniques.
The Land of Milk and Honey, Director Lisa Birke, Canada. 11m 02s
A 360 degree video space of plenty starts to break apart to reveal the messy constructs (and special effects) holding the illusion together. The Land of Milk and Honey grapples with fertility, loss and the physical, poetic and psychological complexities of the human body.
Lost in a Forgotten Place, Director Mona Kasra, United States. 7m 14s
An encounter with a strange intruder in a post-apocalyptic nightmare.
MLK Convergence, Directors Joergen Geerds, Uli Futschik, United States, 10m 22s
Colors, feelings and textures were inspiration for bassist Marlene Rosenberg’s compositions and albums in the past. In contrast, her latest album – “MLK Convergence” – is a response through music to America’s societal and political woes. For the recording in NYC, Marlene brings together drummer Lewis Nash and pianist Kenny Barron, a union forming the acronym MLK. The title ,of course, also evokes the philosophies of the late Martin Luther King Jr.
The short 360 documentary provides a glimpse into how the former and the latter blend during the creation of the album.
Om Devi: Shereos Revolution, Director Claudio Casale, Italy, 20m
A doctor, an activist who survived an acid attack and a young priestess tell their dreams of gender equality in a country shaken by demands for fundamental civil rights. Om Devi: Sheroes Revolution is a documentary in 360° following three Indian women as they fight for gender equality, economic independence, equal rights and free access to knowledge.
Welcome to the Other Side – Zero Gravity, Director Jean-Michel Jarre, France, 4m 49s
Captured live from a studio near the Notre Dame Cathedral, Jean-Michel Jarre performed live as his avatar played inside the virtual cathedral. Zero Gravity is one of the tracks featured at the 45-minute concert.
Spotlight On – Audri Phillips
(Dome Theater)
FIVARS in FEB is proud to shine a spotlight on Audri Phillips, a true visual pioneer and community leader. With one world premiere and four total original works this FIVARS event, director/3D animator, content creator, immersive media specialist Audri Phillips works out of Los Angeles with a wide range of experience that includes over 25 years working in the visual effects/entertainment industry, contributing her artistic flair at a wide variety of studios including SONY, Rhythm and Hues, Digital Domain, Disney, Electronic Arts, and DreamWorks feature animation. Starting out as a painter she was quickly drawn to time-based art and visual poetry. An interest in science and technology has always played a part in her work. She is a pioneer of using cutting edge technology, including immersive media performances, full-dome, and VR/AR.
A member of the Intel Innovators Group, Audri writes online articles for Intel, and is also a member of ADN (Autodesk Developers Network) a resident artist at Vortex Immersion, and a consultant/researcher for a technology company, Stratus Systems. She is the co-founder and director of Robot Prayers an immersive transmedia project which explores AI and our hybrid identities in a world where man and machine are melding.
Over the past 6 years Audri directed/animated/designed over 6 full-dome shows, one with composer, Grammy-winning musician Steve Roach, created animations for dance companies as well as a number of cinematic and interactive VR pieces using Autodesk Maya, Touch Designer and Unreal Engine. She received a grant to do “Blue Apple” a full-dome performance featuring a Los Angeles Dance company. Her dome piece, “Migrations”, was juried into the DTLA 2019 film festival.
Between 2020 and 2021, Audri created several new VR pieces, one using the music of Steve Roach and 2 others with the music of ‘Keram (Keram Malicki-Sanchez.) The VR pieces, “Migrations” is on the Samsung Indie channel. All of the full-dome pieces as well as her animations and paintings have been shown in festivals and conferences around the world. An early project she is proud of in her career was Art Directing the painted video of the Beastie Boys, “Shadrach.” She has been an adjunct professor at a number of Universities around Los Angeles and has a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University
Rukh, Director Audri Phillips, United States, 5m 10s (World Premiere)
Rukh is a piece about isolation and longing, bringing about the desire to fly off to a magical land. We are transported in a large bubble carried by a bird. The VR piece by VFX artist Audri Phillips was created during the pandemic when we have all been forced into our bubbles. It is built on the song “Rukh” by musical artist Keram and features RUSH guitar legend Alex Lifeson with a brand new soaring guitar solo.
Spiral of Strength, Director Audri Phillips, United States
A poetic inner journey created with the music of Steve Roach and the visuals of Audri Phillips
Heart Dance, Director Audri Phillips, USA
(Dome theater) Heart Dance is a prayerful dance to bring a brighter future. First inspired by the drought and then fires in California, now it seems applicable as a dance to end the pandemic. The soulful music by Grammy-nominated composer Winter Lazerus carries the spirit of the piece.
INTERACTIVE VR EXPERIENCES AVAILABLE ON MULTIPLE PLATFORMS
All Her Bodies, Director Elizabeth Leister, 10m 40s
All Her Bodies merges poetic storytelling and volumetric filmmaking inside of a VR world. Individual stories of interiority are recounted by five women in an intimate encounter where themes of writing and erasure are underscored.
Amends, Director Mikkel Battefeld, Denmark, 11m 43s
A journey through the reflections of an upbringing with a now
estranged mother.
Platform: Valve Index, HTC Vive, or Oculus Rift
CLAWS, Director John Ertman, United States, 50m
Meet Danny. Danny has a monster trapped in his closet, and he needs your help deciding what to do with it. Simple enough, right? Right… so long as you don’t listen too hard to the banging on the closet door. CLAWS is a twisty, intimate thriller in which you – the only audience member – pick up the phone and help Danny figure out his next move. Your choices matter as the story unfolds – for better or worse.
Platform: Telephone Only
Goodbye Mr.Octopus, Director Amaury Campion, France, 9m 35s
Stella lives alone with her father in a quiet suburb. Liv, her mother who barely raised her, is a star anthropologist and biologist who spends the majority of her time on the other side of the world. On her birthday, Stella’s overprotective father refuses to let her participate in a soccer tournament in Australia that is very important to her. Just when she was ready to give up, she receives help in a very unexpected way: a letter from her mother from the other side of the world, painful but illuminating and able to help her emancipate herself and embrace her future.
Platform: Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, and Oculus Rift S
JK’s Tunnel, Director Chuck Cummings, United States, 15m
Take a VR trip to a drainage tunnel off the L.A. River, where someone named “JK” carved his artwork — odd lists of locations, people, and nicknames — into the concrete walls of the tunnel, in the 1940s and 1950s. For Oculus Rift S, Vive, and Windows Mixed Reality.
Platform: Oculus Rift S, Vive, and Windows Mixed Reality
Lifetime Achievement, Director Yonatan Tal, United States 15m
Meet Albert, a world-class French designer who brings you along as he recounts how he made his greatest masterpiece for his mother. On his quest to use the finest materials and the most avant-garde techniques, you encounter an African albino crocodile, dive into an Indonesian cave for rare crystals, develop new lifeforms in a lab, and capture light rays from a spatial solar eclipse. With his mother’s birthday around the corner and so little time, it’s easy to see how Albert lost sight of what matters most.
Platform: Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, and Oculus Rift S
Heterotopia, Directors Léon Denise, Dorian Rigal Minuit, Samuel Lepoil, France, 30m
Heterotopia is an exhibition composed of several immersive experiences that seek to question the relationship to heterotopia in fantasy worlds.
Platform: HTC Vive, Valve Index, Windows Mixed Reality