Now! A Realities Odyssey

2023/24 (work in progress)

Cross-Reality Group Experience (VR, AR & model making)

Model for the cardboard model by Dennis Stoecker

This interdisciplinary play arrangement combines the three fields of model making, virtual reality and augmented reality in an installative, multi-dimensional setting that invites the audience to collaborative interaction.

1. Model

A miniature cardboard model of a space shuttle of the video artist, set designer and model maker Dennis Stoecker serves as the basis and first level of the work, which is characterized by its own aesthetics, artful handling of the material and intelligent attention to detail.

2. Virtual Reality

This model is also transferred to virtual reality by means of photogrammetry, i.e. digitized in three dimensions and thus opened up on a second level. The individual parts are equipped with interactive game functions, creating an interactive space that can be walked on and interacted with through VR glasses.

3. Augmented Reality

In addition, an augmented reality application opens up the third level of the game installation: Using a tablet held above the cardboard model, viewers can look into the virtual reality from the outside, locate the VR player inside, and playfully influence his virtual environment. In this way, the players can interact with each other from different realities and solve puzzles and tasks together.

Gameplay:

Visitors can first admire the model, then play the low-threshold game on the tablet, and finally enter and interact with the artwork itself using the VR goggles. This gamified combination of "real", virtual and augmented reality allows for a cross-reality group experience and collaborative exploration of the artwork on three different layers of reality. "Now! A Realities Odyssey" thus thrives on the contrasts between reality and mimesis, materiality and digitality, and miniature and life-size, challenging players to perform a mental transfer by playfully switching between the different perspectives, dimensions and actualities.

Experience Design & Programming: Lena Biresch
Programming & Photogrammetry: Nico Parisius
Model Making & Video: Dennis Stoecker