Virtual reality in a COVID-19 and post-COVID world
With covid-19 changing our daily interactions, what are the opportunities and challenges for virtual reality in the new normal?
Presented by
Description
As COVID-19 forced many countries into lockdown, sales of virtual reality (VR) headsets spiked. Industries turned to VR as a solution for entertainment, training, and education that could no longer take place face-to-face. This may now be the era in which VR becomes fully mainstream.
At this pivotal moment, what power do we have to shape the way VR is used? How do we determine which stories get told and whose perspective will be seen? How do we work through the digital divide where communities may not have access to headsets or high-speed internet? How do our VR experiences remain powerfully local with a simultaneous ability to reach far across the world?
This panel session will engage with these topics to think about the immediate present of VR in Aotearoa as well as its future and global spread.
Speaker Bios
Raqi Syed is a writer and artist who has worked on multiple films. Her VR experience, MINIMUM MASS, premiered at Tribeca and her essays have appeared in TechCrunch, Vice, Salon, Quartz, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. Raqi is a 2018 Sundance New Frontier Story Lab Fellow and 2020 Ucross Fellow.
Miriam Ross is a creative arts researcher who works with new digital cinema technologies to challenge expectations of how they should be used. Her experimental films have been screened internationally.
Wiremu Grace is a filmmaker whose work is heavily influenced by the upbringing he had on the traditional whēnua of his ancestors. He has extensively worked in visual arts, stage, radio, new media, television and film.
John Strang is a highly experienced motion designer and VFX artist, founder and creative director of Dusk. He has worked on award winning projects including film, TV, museums, visitor centres, live shows, the web and VR.
Registration is free via https://techweek.co.nz/whats-on/2020/virtual-reality-in-a-covid-and-post-covid-world-775/
For more information contact: Miriam Ross
miriam.ross@vuw.ac.nz 04 463 9655