#1416: Preview of Venice Immersive 2024 Innovations in Immersive Storytelling & Art Installations with Curators

Voices of VR

The 8th edition of the Venice Immersive 2024 will be kicking off on August 28th, which will be featuring over 28 hours of immersive storytelling and immersive art content across over 70 different projects. This year there area a lot more immersive installations representing over a third out of the total number of on-site projects (18 out of the 52). There's eight mixed reality projects, a couple of projects featuring haptics, and one that prominently featuring AI character interactions. There are also 20 VRChat worlds in the Worlds Gallery along with 3 VRChat worlds in competition with 1 project that's using Resonite social VR platform. I had a chance to catch up with the co-curators Liz Rosenthal and Michel Reilhac again this year to get a sneak peak of the 26 projects in competition as well as 9 of the projects within the Best of Selection (note that it was announced just this morning that the Apple Vision Pro experience Adventure was pulled from the festival). We also talk about how there's going to be a private think tank on September 1st looking at LBE distribution challenges and opportunities. Be sure to check out their previous report titled "Think Tank: Immediate Options to Address the Pressing Needs of Immersive Distribution." 17 out of the 20 VRChat worlds in the Worlds Gallery are already currently publicly available, and the three that are not are Concrete: Pale Sands, SNR Labs Test Facility, and Sanctum (though this one will be available after the festival run). Each of these are featuring some volumetric and holographic shaders that VJs are using in the VRChat clubbing scene, which I covered extensively in my previous three episodes, particularly in #1415 talking with two VRChat VJs and a DJ about the evolution of volumetric effects in music shows. But also check out #1413 where I talk with the SNR Labs team and in #1414 about how dancer SoftlySteph used the holographic shader tech that's demonstrated in the SNR Labs Test Facility experience. Below is a cheat sheet of the Venice Immersive 2024 experiences ordered by length. Note that the Free UR Mind is actually closer to 55 minutes, and that Adventure is no longer in the Best of Selection. Also included is a copy of the map for where the experiences are located with some quality of life improvements that I made so that the text is all horizontal and a bit easier to read. I also have a version of the Venice Immersive experience map with the length of the experience embedded to make it easier for when you may be in standby mode. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality