EngadgetExperience2017
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How 'Dinner Party' tells an alien abduction story in VR
At our first Engadget Experience in LA last week, we premiered five virtual reality projects that pushed the boundaries of the new medium. Among them was Dinner Party, a retelling of the famous Betty and Barney Hill alien abduction story. Based on what we've seen so far, it's one of the most intriguing VR entries yet. In our documentary, co-creator Laura Wexler explains how her team brought one of the most famous stories from UFO folklore into virtual reality.
'Dance with flARmingos' hides a deeper discussion behind goofy moves
Flamingos are all legs and pink feathers -- an iconic symbol of kitsch America. They're still a bird though; a species that's struggled against global warming and human development on its habitats. For the past two years, artist Kristin Lucas' work has revolved around flamingos. She's adopted 20 of 'em, but suspected she'd never meet any of them. Dance with flARmingos tries to bring people closer to the bird, combining mixed and augmented reality tricks to immerse the attendee in a flock of strutting flamingos. Lucas' enthusiasm for the bird is infectious -- here's the story behind the project.
The unconventional analogies of ‘Your Hands Are Feet’
Last week, we held the first Engadget Experience in LA, where Your Hands Are Feet was one of five immersive art projects to debut. The virtual reality experience drops you into a surreal world, full of experiential metaphors. Experiences like, for instance, what it's like to shave a giant's hairy pink leg in the desert. In our documentary, creators Sarah Rothberg and Amelia Winger-Bearskin explain their working partnership, visual style and the inspiration behind their psychedelic worlds.
'Untrained Eyes' puts an AI spin on looking at yourself in the mirror
What if you stood in front of a mirror and saw someone who barely looked like you? That's exactly what happens in Untrained Eyes, an interactive sculpture debuting today at the Engadget Experience, a one-day event that showcases exhibitions which mix art with technology. Untrained Eyes, created by conceptual artist Glenn Kaino and actor Jesse Williams (Grey's Anatomy), doesn't require a headset to be experienced. Instead, the project uses your face, a mirror, a Kinect and machine-learning to show you pictures of people whom you may look like -- or not.
I wore a (virtual) flamingo head while smelling of the wetlands
At 9AM, I was invited to inhale a fragrant cocktail of earthworm, soil, sea and, ugh, sulphur. This first part of Dance With flARmingos sets the stage, coaxing participants to imagine themselves in the wetlands that the iconic flamingo calls home. Iconic yes, but as artist Kristin Lucas noted, plastic flamingos (and other representations) "far outnumber the actual bird."
The future of VR is social: A conversation at Engadget Experience
The Engadget Experience is a day-long celebration of the future of entertainment, gaming, media and art in downtown Los Angeles on November 14th. That day, we've invited the top minds in virtual and augmented reality to the Ace Hotel Theater, where they'll showcase their latest projects and dive deep into the state of these new platforms. For instance, is VR a passing fad or is it here to stay? The answer to that question may lie in VR's ability to be social.
The grantees of Engadget’s $500,000 immersive arts program
When we launched the Alternate Realities grant program in May we had no idea what to expect. We saw a need for funding in the arts happening at just the time when new media like AR and VR were starting to go mainstream. So, with support from our parent company, Oath, we set out to fund five immersive art projects that push the limits of storytelling through emerging technologies. The response was overwhelming. Proposals came from as far away as Iran and Australia and ranged in discipline from theater to fashion, documentary to animation. There were multi-million dollar VR productions, animated shorts and escape rooms. (SO. MANY. ESCAPE. ROOMS.)
