The Horrifically Real Virtuality paints an introspective portrait of the emerging VR, and aims to evoke, with tenderness and self-mockery, its relationship with Cinema. Bela Lugosi, long confined in roles of famous vampires, is entrusted by his friend Ed Wood, a young Hollywood Z movies director, the headliner of his latest film.

from art criticque :

Over the short course of the night, we find ourselves facilitating the filming of the final scene of the titular Horrifically Real Virtuality for Mr. Wood, then donning VR headsets and having the physical room around us transform into the world of the movie we just helped create. It’s an interesting meta, but somehow it never breaks the reality of the performance. Every interaction between us and the actors, every moment of exploration we’re given with the virtual world mapped painstakingly to the physical environment our bodies are in; every aspect of it lends itself to the atmosphere created by this dismal sound stage and the purposefully low-tier movie we are helping create. All at once the show screams “science fiction double feature” and “welcome to the future”, truly a brilliant homage to the technologies at its core and the b-movies that inspired it. The performance ends, and still buzzing from the whirlwind of an hour, my mind is racing with how they pulled off some of their tricks and what the actual set up looked like while we were tuned into the VR helmets. However, observing the camera around my neck, they politely un-invite me from the behind the scenes tour. Fair.

To say that this was fun is a gross understatement. This was the most uniformly joyous I’ve seen an audience for any kind of performance art in quite a while (or as much as I could see with a VR headset on half the time). It’s not merely the entertainment and humour of the content and situation, but the curiosity it invokes. These technologies that are finding their way into the hands of artists more and more every day are a powerful tool for audience investment. And just as most artists are still experimenting with what can be done with these in the context of a show, the majority of the audience is still experimenting with what these technologies even are. You’re driven not only to play with and discover what is being presented to you, but to understand how it is being presented to you. World building through strong storytelling, stagecraft, and writing are in no way overshadowed by these innovations; but when you invite your spectators to slip on a headset and find themselves within the world you’ve built, it’s hard to not react with giddy intrigue. It’s imagination come to life.