I’m led into a loft where the room gradients from electric lime to hot pink, colorful blocky stools are placed throughout and bright wavy lines hang from the ceiling.
These fun and funky pipes add to the overall aesthetic of the loft, but are actually dual purpose sculptures! Within these immersive experiences people are encouraged to reach out and interact with their world, so they must be sectioned off to avoiding bumping into anything. I love the way they made this so decorative!
Robot Remix offers six different VR experiences.
Half are interactive using controllers, the other half are animated shorts which invite you to sit back and enjoy the show.
Interactive
Virtual Virtual Reality, Developed by Tender Claws
This is a fully developed video game available on Steam for $14.99.
I find that the longer spent in Virtual Reality, the more time it takes to adjust back to reality, which is a fun and unusual feeling. VVR had the illusion of putting on more VR headsets or having them fall away from your face in the game, so when you finally do pull your headset off, it’s an Inception type of mind-warp. I found this experience to be the most entertaining at Robot Remix because of the sheer amount of time you can spend trying to solve the game’s puzzle! I was playing for about half an hour, but the docents said it could take over one hour to complete — so you might have some headset lines pressed on your face afterward!
Your Hands Are Feet, an Egg VR Production
(6 min runtime)
Unceded Territories, by Paisley Smith and Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun
(6 min runtime)
Animated Shorts
Gloomy Eyes by Atlas V
(7 min runtime)
I can’t speak highly enough about Gloomy Eyes. This was my favorite VR short exhibited at Sundance Festival’s New Frontier Labs, and I begged its docent to sneak me in for additional sessions in during our meal breaks. I have seen this animated short over four times! The creator’s grasp on using an immersive space to their advantage is superb. For example, a floating mote of light guides the eye and shows you exactly where to be looking, instead of the “I’m lost” side-to-side scanning that people tend to do in a VR headset when they’re not sure where to look. I would describe the animation as watching tiny, living, Burton-inspired figurines move before your eyes. The seven minutes runtime ends far too soon, leaving you wanting so much more!
Invasion! by Baobab Studios
(6 min runtime)
Micro Giants directed by Yifu Zhou
(8 min runtime)
I’ve written previously about VR and its reoccurring theme of exploiting phobias. This is not a story for anyone with arachnophobia! Micro Giants shrinks you down to bug-size to experience the dog-eat-dog world of insects. A ladybug chows down on an aphid, the ladybug then gets ensnared in a spider’s web. While the arachnid wraps up its meal for later, a parasitic wasp inserts its larvae into it. After the new wasp hatches, it’s consumed by a bird, and so it goes. Existing as their size was a unique view, leaving you with a newfound appreciation for your human size.
Recent Techniques in 360°
I’ve experienced quite a bit of VR, so I like to take note of the techniques I notice cropping up that enhance the immersive experience. Here’s what I noticed from the stories featured in Robot Remix!
🤖 Rising/Falling Feeling
Clusters of eyeballs dropping far down below your feet, or rising in an elevator that you actually must press the buttons to operate. These visuals can elicit a visceral response and the optical illusion can create a rising or dropping feeling in your stomach!
🤖 Mirrors
Showing your “body” with a mirrored surface can really aid in grounding you in it. In Your Hands are Feet, instead of just looking down and seeing arms, they also have your torso and legs, as well as several mirrors during the short. Look into the reflection and tilt your chin or dance, all of these motions are reflected, really placing you into the world of the story.
🤖 360° Audio
In Virtual Virtual Reality, I was able to find someone playing hide-and-seek because of the pinpoint accuracy of the audio. This type of sound design greatly enhances the experience as it pairs your vision and hearing to work together to try and convince you you’re somewhere else.
🤖 Answering a phone
Using another technology while immersed in VR is trippy, especially something as familiar and natural as picking up a ringing phone. The 360 audio component really brought the phone to life, the voice on the other end would get clearer or fuzzier depending on how far you held it from your ear.
Robot Remix Immersive XR Series runs every weekend in Pasadena’s sp[a]ce gallery until September 8. I’d highly recommend the experience, and you can reserve your spot on Eventbrite!
