VR Club
VR Club was created during the pandemic to support different kinds of artists to learn a new medium, to experiment in small groups with new (to us) technology, to connect remotely, and to transition art/work into extended reality when desired.
Our team consists of Sunny Nestler (admin), Ainsleigh Spencer (interaction design) and Derek Woodward (technical support.) VR Club is currently running a year of back-to-back two month workshops in which participants in groups of 4 are shipped an Oculus Quest 2 headset on loan, and are supported through a series of workshops, one-on-one support, virtual events, and a speaker series to orient them to the possibilities of working in VR as a medium.
Upcoming workshops are currently full
April 2023 Speaker Series: Artists Working with Virtual Reality
VR Club presents
A Speaker Series: Artists Working with Virtual Reality
April 2023
VR Club presents a series of three talks with artists working across different mediums: holography, video/animation, film, and more. Join us to hear them share how they have adapted their medium around virtual reality, challenges and successes along the way, and their relationships with emerging/changing technology. Presentations with Q&A will take place at a zoom link which you can access below.
Linda Law: Wednesday, April 12th @ 11:30 - 12:30
Simon Ward: Wednesday, April 19th 2:00 - 3:00
Colin Van Loon and Dana Dansereau: April 26th @ 11:30 - 12:30
All times listed are in PST.
image by Sunny Nestler, Derek Woodward, and Midjourney AI
Linda Law is a Digital/Holographic Artist who has been exploring dimensional imagery since the early days of Holographic Art in the mid \70s. Her exposure to Computer Graphics and 3D animation at NY Institute of Technology in the 80’s led her on a journey focused on manifesting Computer Generated Holograms. The computational demands required to produce high resolution, full parallax images has held this technology back until now where she believes we are on the brink of having real world tools to achieve this. Interestingly, many of the tools being used to create content for VR are now becoming useful tools for creating these types of holograms.
Linda Law is the Executive Director of the HoloCenter in Kingston, NY, www.holocenter.org, the Founder of the Virtual Museum of Holography, www.vmoholo.org and the Founder of the International School of Holography, www.internationalschoolofholography.com.
image by Sunny Nestler, Derek Woodward, and Midjourney AI
Simon Ward is a largely self-taught animator and video director from Aotearoa New Zealand, with over sixty music videos under his belt. Ward’s nostalgia-driven sensibility is fuelled by his upbringing in a small town in New Zealand where boredom was alleviated through the worlds of science-fiction and fantasy. A true innovator in Aotearoa animation, the lo-fi aesthetic Ward is renowned for was borne out of practicality – he began making no and low-budget music videos for his friends from his bedroom production studio. Since then, his accolades have grown to include broad-ranging projects from co-directing adult animated comedy Aroha Bridge with Piki Films, to a sustained collaborative digital art practice with visual artist Jess Johnson, showing in art institutions throughout the world.
image by Sunny Nestler, Derek Woodward, and Midjourney AI
Award-winning Filmmaker Ahnahktsipiitaa (Colin Van Loon) is Blackfoot and Dutch. He originally hails from The Piikani Nation. During his upbringing, he resided alongside his mother in Lethbridge and many other dusty Southern Alberta towns.
Recently, Ahnahktsipiitaa has worked as the Operations Manager for Emily Carr University IM4-Lab (2018-2022). IM4-Lab is a leading XR (VR/AR) project to increase Indigenous representation in emerging XR fields. Presently, Ahnahktsipiitaa oversees the Film, TV & XR production company he created, Blackfoot Nation Films.
Ahnahktsipiitaa is an ImagineNATIVE Film Festival board member and Vancouver International Film Festival Indigenous Advisory Council member, and he sits on the Telefilm Indigenous Working Group. Community-centred, he aims to elevate the voices and stories of Indigenous peoples, whether it is creating spaces for youth works in the Talking Stick’s Festivals REEL Reservations or through his company Blackfoot Nation Films. This community intent extends to collaborations with other Indigenous artists, including the Snotty Nose Rez Kids, Trevor Soloway and the late Taran Kootenhayoo.
A producer at the NFB’s Interactive Studio, Dana Dansereau has helped create many projects, the latest being the Sundance New Frontier 2022 premiering This is Not A Ceremony by Ahnahktsipiitaa -- which is as hard hitting as it is beautiful. Other notable projects include the Canadian Screen Award-winning Gymnasia by Felix & Paul Studios and Clyde Henry Productions, the first full immersive 360 stop-motion VR animation. Dana also produced the CSA-winning VR experience Biidaaban: First Light by Lisa Jackson, Mathew Borrett and Jam3; Brett Gaylor and Darren Pasemko’s Webby-winning short video, OK Google; and Leanne Allison and Jeremy Mendes’ genre-defining interactive doc, Bear 71.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts’ Digital Greenhouse Grant.
image by Derek Woodward and Midjourney AI
Hello, World!
click and drag
multiplayer
///This space is under construction
Cone Worms XR
Cone Worms XR is an extended reality prototype, currently in development.
Read more about Cone Worms XR in Occasional Papers’ publication of creative research published by Occasional Press in 2022, which you can download here.
Lead Artist: Sunny Nestler
Lead Designer: AA Spencer
Producer: Violator Films
In the near future, Cone Worms are organisms that have evolved from their plastic predecessors into living creatures. When these strange organisms, made of linked traffic cones and DNA, come to life and propagate, they roam unrestricted by their former occupation. They now share our city as biological citizens, and acting as our tour guides, they take us to various Vancouver sites, showing us imaginative views of the city. As an emerging species, not an endangered one, the cone worm shows us the way into a more sustainable and equitable future.
CG render, Cone Worms near Burrard Inlet
We are conditioned by traffic cones that tell us very plainly where we can’t go; typically cones linked together are perceived as barriers. But when transformed into organic, segmented creatures they come to life, showing where you can go. Repurposing the cone as a symbol means showing connectivity and freedom of movement, inspiring new connections and pathways.
Still image from Cone Worms near Burrard Inlet, CG video, 2:00.
This is an example of three cone worms in a virtual reality compatible space in Unity game engine. Cone worms can be walked around/between, and picked up using either the left or right controller and moved around in space.
Special thanks to Preview Labs Rapid Game Prototyping and VIVO Media Arts Centre.
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
About Canada Council for the Arts
The Canada Council for the Arts is Canada’s public arts funder, with a mandate to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts. The Council champions and invests in artistic excellence through a broad range of grants, services, prizes and payments to professional Canadian artists and arts organizations. Its work ensures that excellent, vibrant and diverse art and literature engages Canadians, enriches their communities and reaches markets around the world. The Council also raises public awareness and appreciation of the arts through its communications, research and arts promotion activities. It is responsible for the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, which promotes the values and programs of UNESCO in Canada to contribute to a more peaceful, equitable and sustainable future. The Canada Council Art Bank operates art rental programs and helps further public engagement with contemporary arts.
Shadow Biosphere
Experiments in combining digital and physical art works.
Left: Digital mockup showing three paintings on a gallery wall. Right: Digital mockup showing the same three paintings, plus a digital sculpture, viewed through a virtual reality headset. Note: viewed through a headset, the physical space is rendered in black and white and the digital space is rendered in color.