Director Andrea Cooper’s GONE is a meditative VR experience shaped by the quiet grief of aging, the disorientation of the pandemic, and the deep time of a changing planet—a myth told through flesh, stone, and immersive memory.

What lead to the creation of this piece?

GONE was shaped by a deep sense of disorientation during the early years of the pandemic — a time when everything felt suspended, yet all around me things were aging, dying, shifting, eroding. I was spending a lot of time with my aging parents, witnessing both the vulnerability and quiet strength in their bodies, while also feeling my own middle-aged body begin to change. There was a kind of silent grief in that — a reckoning with time moving through us.

At the same time, I was thinking about the planet — its long cycles, its collapses, its slow, almost imperceptible transformations. The idea that time isn’t linear, but circular — like the return of ice ages, or the renewal hidden inside decay — kept rising to the surface.

The red rock of the Tablelands in Newfoundland, where you can walk on the Earth’s exposed mantle, felt like the perfect metaphor. It is a very special place to me that is shaped by deep time, a landscape that holds both ancient violence and extraordinary stillness. That became the emotional ground for GONE — a piece about aging in the age of extinction, about the fragile endurance of bodies and worlds.

Technically, I wanted to bring this into VR not just for the novelty, but because immersive media has the capacity to slow down time, to hold presence. I fused volumetric video/performance for the camera, photogrammetry, 3D animation, spacial sound, and special effects to create something that felt like a myth told through flesh and stone. At the heart of it all is the egg — a symbol of potential, mystery, and the cyclical nature of life.

What was the production process for you and your team? What did you learn?

The production of GONE was incredibly layered — both technically and emotionally. It began with extensive visual research and fieldwork in the Tablelands of Gros Morne, a place that feels almost alien in its beauty. From there, Infinite Frame Media created 360 photoscans to scan the landscape and stitch it back together.

I performed the central character using stereoscopic volumetric video capture in Toronto with Infinite Frame Media, which was a key part of preserving a sense of realism and presence in the piece. At the same time, we animated fantastical creatures — a sabre-toothed cat, a ghostly herd of mammoths — using 3D animation created by Jakub Proszowski from Modular VR. It was a small team, but highly collaborative: I also worked closely with Richard Mitchell on additional animation (those gorgeous trees!), and with Chandra Bulucon on an original sound score that moves between intimacy and epic scale.

What I learned — or maybe what was reinforced — is that storytelling in VR is a different language. It’s not just about narrative beats, it’s about spatial rhythm, atmosphere, and emotional immersion. I also learned the importance of patience — rendering, fixing glitches, and balancing the technology with the emotional core of the story was a long, detailed process. But when everything aligned, there were moments of real magic. GONE was over three long years in the making.

One of the hardest parts of making GONE was figuring out how all the pieces were going to work together. I had this big vision — volumetric video, 3D scans, animation, special effects — all running in Unity. But there was a real gap between the capture process and post-production, and no clear roadmap to follow. It was my first time working in VR, and I quickly realized the scope was far more complex than I’d anticipated. Building a custom VR pipeline and getting all the elements to speak the same language felt like assembling a puzzle without knowing what the final image looked like.

Finding the right team made all the difference. Dustin Boyce and Chel O’Hara from DCXIX were absolutely key. They helped build the pipeline from the ground up and really understood how to translate the creative vision into something technically achievable. Without them, GONE wouldn’t exist in the way it does now. Their creative problem-solving and deep technical knowledge were essential to the final product.

What I also learned through the process is that working in VR is not just about tech — it’s about holding onto emotional clarity through layers of complexity. I also learned that building something new often means sitting in a lot of uncertainty (which can be extremely stressful) and trusting your collaborators. When the art and tech work, it it deeply gratifying. It feels like creating a world from the inside out.

How did you become an immersive content creator and why?

I didn’t set out to become an immersive media creator — it really grew out of my practice as a visual artist and storyteller. I was visiting Montreal and experienced my first VR film at the PHI Centre and after viewing a VR film in a headset, I knew that was the direction I wanted to move my art practice. I’ve always been interested in layered narratives, in worlds that are emotional, mythological, and a bit surreal. At a certain point, traditional video and installation started to feel limiting. I wanted viewers to enter the work, not just watch it.

When I started experimenting with VR, something clicked. It wasn’t just about the technology — it was about presence. Suddenly, you could place someone inside a story, and they could feel it in a completely different way. That opened up new possibilities for how I could explore themes like time, memory, grief, and the future.

So it wasn’t a straight line. It was more like following my curiosity and gradually realizing that immersive media was the space where all my interests — visual art, storytelling, sound, and technology — could come together.

What is the VR/AR industry like in your region?

The XR (Extended Reality) art scene in Newfoundland and Labrador is still emerging, but it’s steadily gaining momentum. While the region may not yet have a large-scale XR industry, there are notable initiatives and collaborations shaping its development. There are very few artists working in VR. Artists like Jordan Bennett have created very powerful XR experiences.

What do you have planned for the future?

I’m currently developing a new immersive project called CREATURE. It builds on some of the ideas in GONE — like time as a loop and the blending of myth and ecological collapse — but takes them into a new direction. This time, I’m combining volumetric performance with motion capture of animal-like creatures, and setting everything in a surreal hybrid of real-world locations in Newfoundland: Fogo Island and Gros Morne.

I’m also working more with AI — both in generative visuals and sound — and exploring projection mapping, interactivity, and physical installation. The goal is to create an immersive gallery experience that feels more like entering a living, breathing fable than watching a traditional piece of media. I’m really interested in how technology can be used not just to simulate reality, but to create emotional, otherworldly encounters.

At the same time, I’m hoping to continue showing GONE internationally and find new ways to share the work — whether through festivals, dome experiences, or gallery installations. It’s important to me that this kind of immersive storytelling reaches wider audiences and continues to evolve.

What would you like to share with fellow content creators and/or the industry?

I’ve never been great at making work that fits into tidy categories — and I don’t think we need to try to “fit in.” Immersive media is still in the process of being defined, and that’s actually a huge opportunity. There’s space to invent your own language, your own emotional logic, your own way of storytelling.

My advice is to trust your instincts, even when the tools feel overwhelming or the technology isn’t quite where you want it to be. VR is expensive to create — and as independent artists, we’re often working without the kinds of budgets that big studio projects have. But that doesn’t mean the work can’t be powerful. In fact, limitations can lead to more inventive and personal approaches.

I also believe it is critical to build relationships with people who get it — not just technically, but creatively. GONE only came together because of a few key collaborators (Infinite Frame Media, DCXIX, Modular VR, Puppy Machine Productions and more) who believed in the work and were willing to experiment alongside me. They also had massive patience! You don’t need a huge team, but you do need people who deeply care in producing the best work, and are committed to your vision.

And finally, I think we have to keep pushing for more space for XR in the arts — especially outside of big urban centres. There’s incredible potential for immersive storytelling that doesn’t look like gaming or commercial tech. The more we share what we’re making, the more we help shape the future of the medium.

Do you think VR festivals like FIVARS are important?

Festivals like FIVARS are incredibly important, especially for creators working in VR and immersive media. They provide one of the few dedicated spaces where this kind of work is taken seriously on its own terms — not as a tech demo or novelty, but as a legitimate form of storytelling and artistic expression.

For artists like me, these festivals are vital platforms to connect with other creators, find new audiences, and see how the language of immersive media is evolving globally. VR can be isolating to make (especially when you live on an island in the middle of the North Atlantic!) — so having places where those worlds can be shared, experienced, and celebrated is really meaningful.

FIVARS in particular has done a great job of championing experimental work and making space for diverse artistic voices. That kind of curatorial care helps push the medium forward.

GONE will screen for in-person attendees June 25th and 26th