Category Archives: Virtual Reality

MUMBAI, March 2 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Virtual reality - used in gaming to bring players close to the action - is for the first time being deployed to fight human trafficking, with a documentary chronicling one girl's descent into the Indian sex trade.

The documentary uses so-called VR technology to immerse viewers into the reality of life for a young country girl who is married off by her father then trafficked into a brothel.

"Virtual reality is a powerful form of storytelling and the cause will get more attention from the world over," Hannah Norling, of My Choices Foundation, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on Thursday.

The non-profit foundation partnered with the charitable arm of a U.S. virtual reality tech firm, Oculus, to make the film, which will premiere at a Texas film festival this month.

The team hopes to zero in one life to create greater empathy with all victims of trafficking, estimated to total nearly 21 million people worldwide. Of these, an estimated 4.5 million people are forced into sex work, most of them women and girls.

'Notes to My Father' tells the story of one such victim, who narrates to her father the horror of being trafficked.

The 11-minute documentary gives a 360-degree view of village life as she recounts her abduction-to-escape journey that spans the two Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

"Using virtual reality was a strategic choice as it gives a first person experience of another person's experience. It is emerging as the number one tool to help people engage and react," said Norling.

The film can be viewed using a VR headset that gives viewers the perception of being physically close to the characters.

The technology has previously been used to document gritty social causes and found to be effective, with a film chronicling a Syrian refugee in Jordan helping raise funds for Unicef.

The documentary will be released on Facebook by September and screened in rural India, Norling said, part of a wider campaign to educate fathers about sex trafficking.

A My Choices Foundation study found 90 percent of trafficked girls came from the most marginalised communities, and that any decision to release a girl usually rested with the father.

The girl featured in the documentary was married off at 13 by her father who wanted to give her a better life.

"He played a role in her trafficking unintentionally," Norling said.

The husband became abusive and the girl was vulnerable when the traffickers befriended, drugged then abducted her.

"The entire time she was gone from home, he worked in brick kilns for money and went looking for her. He was a good father." (Reporting by Roli Srivastava; Editing by Lyndsay Griffiths. Please credit Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, womens rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit news.trust.org)

* Sees Q2 revenue of $4.65 billion, +/- $50 million; sees Q2 earnings per share $0.86, +/- a few cents - SEC filing

SAN FRANCISCO, March 2 U.S. electric vehicle charging station maker ChargePoint Inc said on Thursday it is raising $100 million in a funding round led by German automaker Daimler that will allow it to expand into Europe.

* Announces capital increase raises in total 1.97 million euros ($2.1 million)

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Virtual reality brings reality of sex trade to viewers - Reuters

We know virtual reality is changing entertainment: it features prominently, for example, in this UK premiere of Lindsey Ferrentinos play, which is accompanied by an immersive VR installation in the foyer after the show. But it was news to me that VR is used to treat soldiers experiencing PTSD. In Ferrentinos play, Jess has returned home to Floridas Space Coast after a third tour of duty in Afghanistan: her face and body are badly burned and she is in chronic pain, struggling to walk or turn her head. Ugly Lies the Bone charts her efforts to heal physically, and harder still to face the emotional challenges of homecoming: a reality that doggedly resists virtual solutions.

Having premiered in New York in 2015, the play is now given a hi-tech production by Indhu Rubasingham, the entire curving, craterous stage of which becomes a giant screen each time Jess dons her VR goggles. Over 90 minutes, scenes of her reintegration into hometown life are intercut with therapy sessions, immersing Jess in a paradisiacal virtual world that relieves her pain. She dreams of a mountainous snowscape; her unseen therapist brings it to digital life around her and before our eyes, too, courtesy of video designer Luke Halls.

Its spectacular. But neither play nor production are ideal adverts for the wonders of virtual reality. Yes, it helps Jess get back on her feet. But Ferrentino casts growing doubt on the claims made for the treatment by an evangelical therapist who promises Jess she can be as powerful as the stars. The productions wraparound visuals are a red herring, too. This is in part a play about staying afloat in a town of foreclosed homes and jobs lost at the local Nasa base, so its uneasily served by glossy, high-end production. The VR sequences are striking but incidental; as Jess realises, the serious business is happening in the real world, not the fantasy realm.

There, Kate Fleetwoods demobbed gunner lives with her protective sister Kacie (Olivia Darnley), while at loggerheads with Kacies boyfriend, Kelvin (Kris Marshall), and tentatively rekindling an old flame of her own. Ferrentino gives a tough but tender if slight account of Jesss struggle to reintegrate, as friends tread on eggshells around her brutalised body, and Jess herself must reimagine who she is and what life can now be. The same not coincidentally goes for her home town. The launch of Americas last space shuttle forms the backdrop to the play, and the purposelessness it leaves in its wake counterpoints Jesss personal plight.

All this can feel tidy and conventional, as Ferrentino stages emotionally articulate confrontations between her characters, before co-opting Jesss mothers dementia to contrive an over-neat conclusion. But it remains involving, thanks to Fleetwoods sardonic, unsentimental turn as the damaged heroine, determined that all this pain cannot be for nothing, and Ralf Little as the low-horizoned, big-hearted gas station attendant she left behind. The VR sequences are eyecatching, but Ugly Lies the Bone is stronger when fathoming that even more complex technology, the human heart.

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Ugly Lies the Bone review war veteran faces her demons in virtual reality rehab - The Guardian

THURSDAY, MARCH 2, 2017, 10:30 A.M.

Simple experiences such as walking to the store or sitting down at a lunch table dont sound like the stuff of art. But what if you are a black woman alone? Or a gay man? Or a new parent with a small child? How would you choose to navigate public spaces given those identities?

Those are the virtual reality experiences that Los Angeles-based media artist and game developer A.M. Darke has created in her latest work, In Passing. Her virtual reality exhibit opens Saturday with an artists reception from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Community Building at 35 W. Main Ave. in downtown Spokane.

Darkes In Passing takes place on the virtual street corners of the real Spokane, specifically the block around the Ridpath Hotel. Viewers who don Laboratorys vitural reality headsets can see what its like to navigate those downtown public spaces, based on ones intersecting identities, including gender, race, ethnicity, class and sexuality. Darke created a series of vignettes that viewers can choose to experience and hear. All the stories she gathered are from real people.

I asked folks to record themselves describing their experience moving through the world, Darke said. Users can walk around the environment, which is based on the Ridpath block in Spokane, listening to personal accounts and watching interactions unfold in the background.

Darke has spent the past three months living and working as an artist-in-residence at the local nonprofit Laboratory, which provides space and support for interactive art in Spokane. Laboratorys focus on interactive art translates into exhibits that go beyond art on walls or on stages. Instead, the final works are experiences, often virtual, where the viewer/user can touch, manipulate, and interact with what they are seeing.

At the beginning of In Passing, Darkes work feels much like a video game, with various characters she digitally created walking the streets. The agency that viewers can exercise includes where they go and to whom they listen.

Darke has long been affiliated with the UCLA Game Lab, where she has conducted experimental research and development in the gaming field. Her recent work includes a grocery-based VR game, a first person experience about life with lobster claws for hands, and Objectif, a card game about race and beauty. She also co-founded the feminist art and tech collective Voidlab.

Whether Darke is a game developer or media artist is up to interpretation.

I exist in the in-between space Im both a developer and a VR artist or neither no one wants me! Darke said, laughing.

All of my practice is about persuading people and creating agencies for marginalized bodies, Darke said. The best way to persuade people in that context is not to tell them what to think or what to feel, but to present them with information and allow them to act. Entering games and picking up objects are all about making choices.

The novelty of virtual reality can help to get people into a state of mind where they are receptive to listening to a variety of experiences that may differ from their own, Darke said. Using this game engine lowers peoples defenses a little bit so they can hear really personal and sometimes difficult material.

Characters in In Passing discuss their intersecting identities, sharing narratives of marginalization, isolation or danger. Others relate more ordinary stories that are less eventful, even banal, but no less hurtful.

For example, no one yells racial slurs at the lone African-American man who attends a tech conference. Instead, no one sits with him at the cafeteria, despite a standing-room-only crowd. He is also the only conference attendee whose credentials are checked before hes allowed into the VIP area.

Female characters describe how they prepare themselves to leave home and stay safe while navigating the streets. Yet there are some who bridle against these fear-based, self-imposed restrictions.

One woman says, I pay taxes and I want to be able to move through space like a full citizen, Darke said. She doesnt want to limit her movement based on her gender or her body.

What struck Darke most about the stories she gathered were the ones from men, specifically straight, white men.

I was struck by the stories of men walking around and talking about how their sexual orientation is assumed, or their nationality is assumed, Darke said. In so many ways they are so sort of passing and hiding in order to not invite any discrimination or hostility from the community that they are in.

Darke chose to move to Spokane for her three-month residency based on a Google search and the fact that there are not a lot of VR residencies out there. She was also attracted to the laid back atmosphere of Laboratory and the sense of humor of its founder Alan Chatham.

Im not someone who takes myself super seriously, Darke said. It seemed like a good fit.

Darkes intuition proved correct. Her Spokane experience for the past three months has been creatively rewarding. From collaborating with the artists at the Richmond Art Collective to create faux family vacation videos during a family dinner, to engaging in a virtual reality space-building workshop at Spark Central, Darke frequently encountered a welcoming community of artists.

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Virtual reality exhibit lets you navigate the streets of Spokane and real life experiences - The Spokesman-Review

Participants in the One Earth Film Festival in Lake County can experience a virtual reality movie in which they feel as if they are underwater with some of the 600 types of colorful coral and 1,700 species of fish in Indonesia.

The virtual reality film, "Valen's Reef," can be experienced before and after the movie "A Plastic Ocean" is shown on March 10 at the College of Lake County in Grayslake.

It's one of five films being shown Saturday-March 11 for the film festival. One will be at Prairie Crossing Charter School in Grayslake, two at CLC, one at the Waukegan Public Library and another at a Waukegan church. Participants will have the opportunity to meet a filmmaker, talk about issues with speakers and get involved with local Lake County projects to help the environment.

The virtual film will likely be the highlight of the festival, which is sponsored by the Green Communities Initiative, said Sally Stovall, one of the group's founding members.

"We've gone a step beyond this year to feature this experience. It should be quite spectacular," she said.

The initiative formed six years ago has been bringing environmentally related films to Chicago and the suburbs in February and March for the past six years, with the public invited to view the films for free.

"I'm finding Lake County is a very conservation-minded county. It's also very diverse," Stovall said. "We are working to find different ways to bring messages to the people and to communicate with them."

Two of the films have Spanish subtitles, and two include stories involving Waukegan and Grayslake residents. Discussions and resource fairs will be held before and after most of the movies. Waukegan residents who appeared in one of the movies, "Years of Living Dangerously," scheduled Sunday, will answer questions before and after the movie, which shows the tension between those who believe their health issues are related to a coal plant and those who depend on the plant for their livelihood.

Green Community Connections, a grass-roots sustainability group, was formed to spread awareness of the environment "from climate change to why we should compost our organic waste, why we should conserve water and why we should drive fewer miles in our cars," said Cassandra West, one of the group's founders.

The members started the festival in Oak Park, expanded into the Austin neighborhood in Chicago the next year and then into the collar counties including Lake and DuPage, she said. Roughly 500 members of the public attended films the first year, and 5,000 attended last year, West said.

"Our primary goal is to help people to find some way to take action," Stovall said, and she believes it's working. Surveys show that 96 percent of respondents who have attended one or more films said they had either strengthened sustainable practices, adopted new sustainable practices or done both, she said.

Participants said they were biking more, conserving water, composting and researching sustainability issues, she said.

David Husemoller, sustainability coordinator at CLC, said that's what he appreciates most about the film festival.

Husemoller said at CLC's two screenings, March 10 and 11, participants can visit action tables to gain ideas on helping the environment.

"The energy you get from watching such powerful films can inspire you to take action," Husemoller added. "There will be opportunities to connect with community groups working to improve things here in Lake County."

Stovall said she's seen several of the films that are being shown in Lake County. "Hometown Habitat," to be screened at Prairie Crossing on Saturday, "is beautiful,' she said.

"'You see all these beautiful native plants, the bees and the butterflies and the life that surrounds these plants," Stovall added. Filmmaker Catherine Zimmerman is scheduled to be at the screening of the documentary, which shows how residents of Florida, Arizona and Prairie Crossing are working to create native landscapes.

Stovall said the film sends a message of bringing nature home and working together. "It's really hopeful," she said.

"A Plastic Ocean," shown at CLC March 10, however "is not hopeful," she said. "But it is not hopeless."

She added that "it's a little hard to watch," saying it might not be appropriate for young children. The film shows how plastics entering the oceans end up in the fatty tissues of fish, which humans eat.

"It's the kind of film that gets you thinking, 'How can I reduce the amount of plastic I use?'" she said.

Before and after the showing, participants can experience the virtual reality movie. Participants will receive headsets they can wear so they can experience "actually being there," Stovall said.

Stovall added that "it's showing something people might not be likely be able to experience in person. There are studies that show how an experience like this can increase someone's empathy" toward issues such as environmental causes, which can lead to action.

In addition, a resource fair will follow the movie, and participants can create plastic sculptures.

Being involved in the film festival as a volunteer is what she's been called to do, Stovall said.

"I'm doing this for my children and my grandchildren," she said. "It's my passion."

Sheryl DeVore is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.

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One Earth Film Festival at CLC includes virtual-reality film of Indonesian reefs - Chicago Tribune

New York Times

Oculus Cuts Prices of Its Virtual Reality Gear New York Times On Wednesday, Oculus announced that it has dropped the price of a package featuring its Rift headset and Touch controllers, which allow players to use their hands inside virtual reality, by 25 percent to $598 from $798. Oculus will also reduce the ... Facebook's Oculus cuts price of virtual reality set by $200Reuters Facebook's Oculus Cuts Virtual Reality Headset Price to Spur SalesBloomberg Oculus cuts price on virtual reality gearUSA TODAY TIME -Nasdaq -Fortune -Oculus all 140 news articles »

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Oculus Cuts Prices of Its Virtual Reality Gear - New York Times

Graham Sack has never been the sort of guy content to do one thing. He was for many years an actor, on stage and in films. Hes a PhD candidate in comparative literature at Columbia. He recently sold a screenplay about a math genius who gamed the Texas lottery. Combining his interests in literature and movies, he had long dreamed of adapting something by the writer George Saunders, whose writing Sack fell in love with a decade ago when reading a dystopian Saunders story in The New Yorker.

With so many interests, Sack is the sort of person who wouldnt think twice about reinventing himself as a director of virtuality reality films, which is what he decided to do a little over a year ago. In late 2015, he and his girlfriend saw someone in a New York caf fiddling around with a VR headset, which theyd never seen before. They approached the stranger, who it turned out was visiting New York from Austin, befriended him, and tried out the headset. Within a few months, Sack decided to fly down to Austin to visit his new friend and attempt to shoot something himself.

While in Austin, Sack was sitting in a caf paging through a local newsletter when he saw that George Saunders was scheduled to speak at Book People, a local bookstore. Sack checked the time: Saunderss talk was actually happening that very minute.

Lincoln in the Bardo VR experience

It all felt like kismet. Some of Sacks favorite Saunders stories had seemed to anticipate emerging virtual reality and augmented reality technologies. Sack wondered: had the author himself actually sampled these technologies? Sack rushed back to his Airbnb, grabbed the VR headset hed been playing with, and called an Uber to Book People.

By the time he arrived, Sack had missed the talk entirely, but fans were in line to meet Saunders and have their books signed. Sack filed into the rear of the line, his VR headset in tow.

Finally, it was Sacks turn to speak to Saunders. Sack introduced himself quickly, and asked: Might Saunders like to sample virtual reality?

In case you havent read George Saunders, know that his short stories are infused with techno-skepticism. Many of them present dystopian science fiction worlds where people are manipulated by, or manipulate each other with, various forms of digital machinery. So approaching the author to ask him to put on a scary VR headset was a big ask.

"I think he was curious, but very off-put at the same time," recalls Sack. Whats more, Sack was proposing that Saunders try VR for the first time in a public place (the managers of Book People were still milling about). When Saunders hesitated, Sack explained: "You are already doing virtual reality." The technology that Saunders portrayed in his stories was here. Wasnt it time he sampled it?

Saunders acquiesced. Soon, Sack was fumbling nervously to get the Samsung headset on his favorite living author. After a few false starts with the menu"super awkward," recalls Sackhe managed to boot up his favorite VR film, Chris Milks "Evolution of Verse," a poetic short whose highlight may be the moment a train charges at the camera before transforming into a flock of birds.

At last, the film was running. One of Americas foremost literary figures now stood with a headset strapped to his face in the back of an Austin bookstore beside the table where he had been signing books a few moments before. "Ah jeez . . ." Saunders said as the VR film progressed. "Oh boy, its coming right at me," he said, bumping into the table.

The film ended, and Sack helped Saunders take off the headset. Sack waited anxiously for Saunderss verdict.

"What else should I see?" asked the author.

Sack told Saunders he would be eager to collaborate sometime. They traded emails. Weeks went by. "It was basically radio silence for a month," recalls Sack.

Then, suddenly, Sack got an email from Penguin Random House. They said that Saunders had been thinking a lot about the VR, and invited Sack in for a talk.

Sack assumed hed have the chance to pitch a VR adaptation of a Saunders short story, so he spent weeks combing through every short story Saunders had written, jotting ideas of which ones might work in the medium. But when Sack got to his meeting at Penguin Random House, they sprung a surprising idea on him: Would Sack be interested in making a companion VR short for Saunderss forthcoming debut novel, Lincoln in the Bardo?

Lincoln in the Bardo

Now it was Sack who was slightly hesitant. Saunderss dystopian short fiction was a natural fit for VR, but Lincoln in the Bardo was a period piece (about, among other things, Abraham Lincolns mourning the death of his son, Willie). Was it even suited to a medium of the future like virtual reality?

Sack took the novel home and started reading it. And soon, he came to an early, major scene in the novel, where Lincoln cradles the dead body of his son, a sort of paternal Piet. "I read it, and the tears came, and I was like, I want to do this scene," says Sack. The scene was highly visual, rooted in one place, and had a theatrical qualityall elements VR excelled in handling, Sack had come to feel.

Sack agreed to do the film, entering into a production partnership with the New York Times. (Though the Times has been doing VR journalism for over a year, this is its first foray into scripted, fictional VR.) After navigating a complex, precedent-setting contract negotiationnever before has a novel launched with a VR tie-inSack worked on the film through the summer and fall. Finally, by November, Sack had a rough cut of the film to show Saunders.

They met in a New York hotel: only their second in-person encounter.

Again, Sack fumbled to put the headset on Saunders. And as Saunders watched the film, he scrutinized the authors every reaction. He was particularly nervous about what Saunders would think about the moment in the short film where Lincoln cradles Willies body. Would he find it moving, or maudlin?

Sack had by now tested the film on enough people that he knew exactly where they were in the film based on the most subtle movements of their faces. As Saunders approached the big moment with Willie, Sack braced himself.

Finally, the author spoke. "I'm fucking crying in here man," he said.

And indeed, when the film's last moments were over and Saunders removed the headset, his eyes were red. He said that watching Sacks film helped him relive the pathos he'd felt when originally composing the Lincoln-and-Willie Piet.

You can experience the scene now, too, in various forms. Lincoln in the Bardo itself went on sale last week, along with a companion audiobook (featuring performances from Nick Offerman and others). The VR companion piece can be found via the NYT VR app, or experienced less immersively on YouTube.

"Honestly, its the most fulfilling project Ive ever been involved in," says Sack now.

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The Strange Story Of When George Saunders First Met Virtual Reality - Co.Create

Dive Brief:

Working in conjunction with Wireframe Immersive and Australias Dementia Centre, Glasgow, Scotlandbased architect David Burgher, of Aitken Turnbull Architects,has developed a kit of virtual reality tools to enable design professionals to visualize perceptive impairments related to dementia and old age in the built environment, according to Curbed.

The Virtual Reality Empathy Platform comprises a laptop, VR headset, camera and controller tool. It is intended to provide designers with an immersive component to help improve lighting, floor plans and overall design of care facilities and living environments.

The portfolio of virtual reality design cases continues to expand as contractors, designers and technologists probe the if you could only see what I see actuality of VR technology. Burghers VR kit expands on research conducted at the University of Cambridge, in the U.K., where gloves and impairment goggles were used to simulate arthritis and vision impairment. Both efforts are aimed at accelerating the inclusive design vector to create building interiors better-suited for individuals with dementia as well as other mobility and perception impairments.

Virtual reality is also gaining wider adoption as a safety training tool for the contractors charged with building complex healthcare facilities and other large commercial projects. In September 2016, Bechtel rolled out an immersive safety training program at the companys innovation center in Houston, using a SafeScan VR program from New York Citybased Human Condition Safety to repeatedly expose workers to simulated dangerous or intensive environments.

Meanwhile, hardware manufacturers along with researchers at MIT are working on ways to make the VR experience even more immersive by removing the bulky wires and clumsy interfaces traditionally needed for the high rates of data transfer to headsets.

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Virtual reality kit visualizes safer living space for those with dementia - Construction Dive

Urban Ecosystems designs are built in SketchUp and then rendered in the video game engine Unity. Photo: Urban Ecosystems

Have you ever struggled to sell a job to a client because they just dont see it?

Sometimes even when you have drawn a top down view of their future landscape, rendered it in some 3D software, and talked your client through the vision you have for the space they are still skeptical.

One method that may become a future tool of landscape design is virtual reality, and Urban Ecosystems based in St. Paul, Minnesota, is already putting it to use.

The integration of virtual reality (VR) into their business started by collaborating with a programmer and a video game designer.

I was interested in the interactive component, said Samuel Geer, director of operations for Urban Ecosystems. I dedicated some energy into the seeing what the process would be to bring it (3D models) into a virtual environment. A lot of it can be automated. It wasnt that much extra effort.

Geer says the company creates the environments in SketchUp and then uses the video game engine Unity to add the ability to explore and manipulate the environment. Urban Ecosystems uses VR technology that is custom designed for landscape architecture and design.

Users are able to toggle between different design options to help decide on features from a cost perspective. Photo: Urban Ecosystems

The software is capable of rendering large, complex designs such as parks and golf course, as well as residential landscapes. The space can be filled with people to help determine how the space works when crowded and it can be view in daytime and nighttime settings.

The amount of time it takes to create a VR compatible landscape design can vary.

It depends on the project and what youre trying to do, small scale versus a larger, more complex environment, Geer said. Its going to take longer depending on how many bells and whistles you put into it.

As of right now, Geer hasnt heard of other landscaping companies using this tool, but he notes that architecture firms in their area have started to adopt VR.

Customers often appreciate getting to sneak a peek of what their dream yard will look like, and seeing it in relation to the rest of their home helps them see how a new element would inhabit the space.

It helps communicate the cost dimensions, Geer said. Being able to look at the materials installed helps the make those decisions. Theres a lot of opportunity to combine some decision-making criteria with an aesthetic decision. You can very clearly present that information to the client.

One of the benefits of VR is the ability to look at how the design interacts with the space. Users can see where a view needs to be preserved and which style fits best with the different design options they can switch between.

It helps them feel more in control of the process, Geer said. It lets them feel like theyre in the drivers seat.

Geer believes the interactive nature of VR will help it eventually become the future of presenting landscape designs.

It becomes a hands-on experience and peoples personal interest and tastes are able to be expressed more eloquently compared to seeing a top down design of the space, he said.

Below is a video of Urban Ecosystems demonstrating its VR designs with KARE11.com.

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Clients explore company's landscape designs with virtual reality - Total Landscape Care

New York Times

Virtual Reality New York Times A woman played a game with the PlayStation VR last year. Sony's internal goal was to sell one million of the headsets in its first six months, by mid-April. Credit Corinna Kern for The New York Times. Have you ever experience virtual reality? If so ... Sony's Virtual-Reality Headset Confronts Actual Reality of Modest SalesWall Street Journal (subscription) We just got the first real look into how well virtual reality is sellingBusiness Insider What You Should Know About Each Virtual Reality HeadsetOuter Places New York Times all 159 news articles »

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Virtual Reality - New York Times

I can count on two hands the collectors who are buying immersive media works, said Moving Image fair co-founder Edward Winkleman at a preview on Monday, kicking off Armory Arts Week in New York. But Im encouraged for the future by the number of lawyers and doctors who are buying virtual reality headsets for their kids, and might want to use them for something more than gaming!

Winkleman started the Moving Image fair seven editions ago with his partner, Murat Orozobekov, to give video works a commercial platform and a place where they could have the concentrated viewing an art fair offers. Launched in New York, the fair has since gone global, adding an Instanbul edition. Over the last two years, the founders have turned their focus strongly to virtual reality and augmented reality, which make a strong showing at this small fair, with about a third of the 28 offerings engaging these technologies.

Winkleman and new-media curator Barbara London (a longtime Museum of Modern Art staffer, whose swan song there was a 2013 sound-art exhibition) chatted before the preview about the demands of presenting, selling, and conserving art in newer mediums. Even for video art, collectors and dealers are still hashing out templates for purchasing contracts that can cover issues like optimal presentation environments and terms for possible future conservation, which can include upgrades to newer technologies. Otherwise, said London, the piece dies.

Still from Naoko Tosa, Genesis Yellow (2016), courtesy Ikkan Art Gallery, Singapore.

Those kinds of questions go into overdrive with virtual or augmented reality, in which, Winkleman pointed out, there are many moving parts, including computer coding and headsets, which, in a single piece, may come from various companies. And hardware is changing rapidly in what he described as an arms race among makers of products like the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive, both in evidence at Moving Image.

The headset-driven, immersive, VR works on offer engage a range of artistic interests. Uponentering the fair, the first you encounter is Jakob Kudsk Steensens Oculus Rift piece, Primal Tourism: Island (2017), a virtual visit to the island of Bora Bora, in which a tiny room of plywood and plastic becomes a French Polynesian paradise. Elsewhere, theres Rebecca Allens narrative study of hallucination and of the interior of a human brain, presented by Londons Gazelli Art House.

World and Place Evaporating(2016), by Christopher Manzione and Seth Cluett,impressed even tech geeks present with an eerie but subtly integrated moment in which, with the use of a camera mounted on the front of the headset, the participants own hands become visible as she wanders in a virtual forest.

All that work comes at prices that, Winkleman pointed out, are comparable to those for video works. The VR and ARworks come in editions of between three and eight, and prices range from $5,000 to $25,000. Steensens Bora Bora piece is tagged at $7,000, as is Manzione and Cluetts installation; both are in an edition of five. The priciest work in this category, at $25,000, isTamiko Thiel and Zara Houshmands Beyond Manzanar (2000), in which viewers use a joystick to explore World War II-era internment camps. It comes in an edition of three.

Installation view of Tamiko Thiel and Zara Houshmand, Beyond Manzanar (2000). Image courtesy Moving Image.

Behind the sometimes very impressive effects, some of the artists are engaging topics that stimulate artists in more traditional mediums. Steensens trip to Bora Bora, for example, partly imagines that setting (and hes imagining it too, since hes never been) in a post-ecotourism environment, after years of continuing climate change.

John Craig Freemans geolocated augmented reality piece (its based on some of the same tech that brought you Pokmon Go) overlays scenes from St. Petersburg, Russia with the topography of New York as you look at it on your phone or tablet. Freeman is exploring questions about the nature of the public sphere and public monuments in the digital era. (Its echo of suspicions that Russian intelligence helped nudge the president into the Oval Office is a nice bonus.)

For me, the most compelling piece was one without any such overt topical concerns. Brenna Murphys mesmerizing installation Lattice~Domain_Visualize (2017), on view with Portland, Oregons Upfor Gallery, places the participant in a swirling, kaleidoscopic, bright-hued tower that seems to extend nearly infinitely above and below, with a rushing soundtrack. It comes in an edition of three plus an artists proof, with a price tag of$8,500 including computer, HTC Vive, and floor prints.

In a 2014 interview with Art in America, Murphy expressed a hope for some kind of utopic digital commons, where we can use our connectivity to transcend our current state and bring a more advanced outlook to our place in the world. That belief in the possibilities of the new medium comes across in the exhilarating encounter withthe piece itself, in which digital means add up to an experience that can get mystical.

Moving Image New York is open through March 2 at Waterfront New York Tunnel, 269 11th Avenue, between 27th and 28th Streets, Monday-Wednesday 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Thursday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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Market for Virtual Reality Art Gets Tested at Moving Image Fair - artnet News