The Official Competition VRE22 presents 21 digital and immersive artworks from 12 countries.
The themes dealt with in the works in competition are many and extremely current: populism and disinformation that threaten democracy, the danger of atomic disaster, the climate emergency, the connection between man and artificial intelligence, the search for a new perspective on oneself, humanity and the Universe
An Domhan
An Domhan is an XR experience, mixing virtual and augmented reality through the adaptation of an Irish Celtic legend entitled The Tragic Death of the Tuireann Children. Users embody the main characters of the legend. In a black and white, contrasting and abstract universe, users are immersed in a quest combining revenge and redemption. The augmented reality user has the power to interfere with virtual reality.
Diagnosia
Diagnosia immerses the user in the memories of Mengtai, who was incarcerated in an Internet addiction camp run by the military in Beijing in 2007, where Internet addiction and other youth problems were treated as a serious mental disorder with sometimes violent means. The work is a reflection on how companies can create or manifest pathologies as an instrument of social control.
Cosmic-Atomic
Cosmic•Atomic synchronizes the short film Powers of Ten with its ancestors/descendants, placing the viewer within a 360 degree kaleidoscopic ring of mirrored ascent/descent. The Artwork compresses the sixty years of scientific imagination that preceded/followed Eames’ vision and invites you to feel them all at once.
I and Thou
The artwork explores the connection between man and artificial intelligence, on the abandoning of the world of experience in favor of relationships. “Thou” is defined without limits, it is abstract, it is compared to a god that we can find in virtual reality because of its infinitive creative potential.
Gold Environment
Gold Environment recreates an ontological vision of the place by speculating on human perception, where the machine creates a generative object-oriented gold texture in continuous transformation and develops all around the viewer. Get ready to enter a hybrid world, another dimension but simultaneous to the IRL one!
Cosmogonic
Cosmogonic is the first VR experience inspired by the Polish science-fiction writer Stanisław Lem—known for investigating humanity and social justice through visions of faraway planets and mechanical beings. An adaptation of a 1965 short story by Lem, Cosmogonic speaks to today’s world, where populism and disinformation threaten democracy.
On the morning you wake (to the end of the world)
DIRECTED BY: Mike Brett, Arnaud Colinart, Steve Jamison, Pierre Zandrowicz
COUNTRY: FRA, UK, USA
YEAR: 2022
RUNNING TIME: 42′
On a Saturday morning 2018, all the Hawaiian citizens received an SMS from the Hawaiʻi Emergency Management Agency, which read: BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. As cellular communication networks collapsed and panic took hold of the population.
Ramondino's Apologue Extended Reality Film
Ramondino's Apologue is an animated portrait in augmented reality dedicated to the Neapolitan writer Fabrizia Ramondino and to the universal themes dear to her: motherhood, sea, island, home. Opera is the second chapter of Napoli Tre di Tre, a cross-media trilogy designed to tell the story of the metropolitan city of Naples.
Madame Pirate Becoming
a Legend
A grandma narrates an extraordinary bedtime story to her granddaughter. The untold story of Cheng I Sao, the greatest pirate of all times. In a lawless world, overrun by roving ships and ruthless men, a girl propels herself from a life of forced prostitution, to command the largest and most successful pirate fleet in world history.
Childhood Revisited
The VR short film “Childhood Revisited” inspired by an old photograph of the Hakka village Wugoshuei in Wanluan, Pingtung reconstruct the scenes of everyday life in the past through the latest virtual reality technology to allow the audience to get a glimpse of the environment, buildings, landforms, natural landscapes at that time.
Dragzina
This AR experience challenges your perception of space. The LGBTQIA+ community is often disoriented within heteronormative spaces, and this work reverses that dichotomy by disorienting the audience. In your personal space, you will invite eight drag artists from Moscow: Lorina Rey, Masha Vorslav, Vanessa Diziai, Ramona Vile, Vannet, Anoche Xenon, and Skinny Jenny with Polis Vera/Robert.
Lustration
Lustration is a 4 part multi-strand animated series following a group of characters whose stories are mysteriously intertwined both in the real world and afterlife. As these characters’ stories unfold and intersect, we discover the lengths that some will go to in the name of love while uncovering a conspiracy so vast it has affected every facet of our existence . . . and the next.
The Starry Sand Beach
This Starry Sand is called Baculogypsina sphaerulata, a particular species of Foraminifera, and is the protagonist of a local legend about the North Star, the Southern Cross and a mythical sea serpent... The experience is divided into three parts: the legend, the underwater forest and the exploration of the Earth’s ancient geological memory, back to the birth of the foraminifera 400 million years ago.
Star-Stuff: a way for the universe to know itself
This hybrid VR artwork brings two people together remotely with the aim to give users a new perspective on themselves, humanity, and the Universe free of superficial characteristics that divide and bias us. Floating in space, your hands are transformed into a myriad of constellations while stars emanate from your heart, orbiting your body in a mesmerizing cosmic dance.
Webby's Wonder World
Webby’s Wonder World (WWW) is an artistic journey into the eccentric world of the Web: an immersive and fun video game-like experience for newbies and young generations, showing the positive aspects of the web but also its dark sides. It is a conversation about the impact of our digital activities on our offline lives that will hopefully trigger a greater public awareness around ethical issues on the internet and the future metaverse.
Theatrum Radix
"Theatrum Radix" is a transdisciplinary virtual reality project that stimulates a transdisciplinary, surreal dialogue on the role of objects in scientific and artistic discourse by considering both their historical connection and contemporary perspectives on encyclopaedic knowledge architectures and the presentation of natural and artistic artefacts.
Affiorare/Surfacing
TITLE: Affiorare/Surfacing
DIRECTED BY: Rossella Schillaci
COUNTRY: ITA
YEAR: 2022
RUNNING TIME: 20′
Surfacing immerses the viewer in the everyday life of mothers and children living in prisons and custodial institutions through a magical journey from the iconic Panopticon control system to the latest soft-keeping institutions. The characters tell - in a profound and poetic way - stories of pain but also resilience and hope.
Eva & Eva
Eva & Eva is an ode to nature, femininity and life inspired by the biblical myth of Adam & Eve. The story explores the themes of original sin, dualism, sorority and women empowerment. The purpose is also to question the original symbol of Eve as the first sinner and temptress of evil. The story of this VR project reinterprets the myth of Genesis by featuring original scenes with new contemporary notes.
Goliath: Playing with Reality
Goliath: Playing with Reality follows the true story of a man with schizophrenia. Trascorre molti anni He is taken into a psychiatric hospital where he spends several years mostly in isolation. On his release, he finds connection through playing online multiplayer computer games. Combining candid conversations, mesmerising animations and tactile interactions, enter Goliath’s world where you slip between real and unreal worlds.
Repetition Redundancies
Repetition Redundancies is a work in Virtual Reality that immerses the viewer in a visionary cinematic flow. Immersive environments follow one another, creating a multidimensional experience that questions the ambiguity of language and our interpretation of the world. In Repetition Redundancies each immersive environment represents a unique point of view, a fragment that describes the whole.
When The Heart Tightens
DIRECTED BY: Lea Dedola
COUNTRY: FRA
YEAR: 2022
RUNNING TIME: 8′
TRAILER
The player wakes up in a house of particles inside which he will relive his most significant memories. The artistic research will concern the creation of emotional environments in “3D pointillism”, a visual style will adapt precisely to the cardiac variations, because it allows us to “dissolve” the figurative elements into dots which will then re-materialize into other figurative forms.