Various artists, Virtual Reality: New Frontier, Mill City Museum, Northern Spark 2016. Photo: Max Haynes.
Various artists, Virtual Reality: New Frontier, Mill City Museum, Northern Spark 2016. Photo: Max Haynes.
Black Lives Matter MPLS. Courtesy the artist.
Let’s Go Crazy. Courtesy the artist.
simRVR. Courtesy the artist.
Beginning on June 11 at the 6th annual Northern Spark festival and continuing at the Walker Art Center until June 16, 2016, step into a new immersive medium and roam with bison in the wild, swim with whales in the deep ocean or explore a mysterious asteroid. Virtual Reality: The New Frontier is an international selection of virtual reality works that represents some of the most compelling narrative and documentary VR storytelling being independently created today. The lineup also includes three specially selected pieces simRvR, Let’s Go Crazy, and Black Lives Matter MPLS by Minnesota artists. Visit Sundance.org/vr to view and download the full selection of virtual reality works.
In addition to being able to view the works using phones and Samsung GearVR on-site, you’ll receive an official Sundance Institute New Frontier 10th-anniversary special-edition Google cardboard VR viewer, which you can bring home to continue the adventure. In preparation for mobile VR viewing, download apps for Android or iOS smartphone from the Sundance.org/vr.
Selected VR works include:
Bison Herd
Danfung Dennis
Feel the presence of massive bison on the move from inside the herd.
Black Lives Matter MPLS MN
Chuck Olsen
One peaceful night at the Black Lives Matter protest in North Minneapolis, Winter 2015
Cardboard Crash
Vincent McCurley, Loc Dao
In this cleverly animated virtual reality experiment, the ethics of artificial intelligence algorithms in self-driving cars are questioned on the occasion of an unavoidable crash.
The Click Effect
Sandy Smolan, James Nestor
A live-action, immersive VR experience, in which two renegade marine science researchers attempt to free-dive a hundred feet below the ocean’s surface in a single breath, to capture the “click” communication of dolphins and sperm whales—the world’s largest predators.
Collisions
Lynette Wallworth
Journey with the artist to a remote desert in western Australia to connect with indigenous leader Nyarri Morgan and the Martu tribe.
Defrost
Randal Kleiser
In this futuristic, sci-fi, live-action VR adventure, viewers are put in the seat of a woman who wakes up after being frozen for nearly 30 years, to reunite with her family.
Evolution of Verse
Chris Milk
A photo-realistic CGI-rendered 3-D virtual reality film that takes the viewer on a journey from one beginning to a new beginning.
fabulous wonder.land
Toby Coffey, Lysander Ashton, Ollie Lindsey (Royal National Theater)
Fall down the rabbit hole and explore the magical, vibrant world of wonder. land in this animated musical video take on the stage show of the same name created by The Royal National Theatre.
Hard World For Small Things
Janicza Bravo
This remarkable live-action VR transports you to a day in the life of a tight- knit community in South Central Los Angeles.
A History of Cuban Dance
Lucy Walker
Dances progress chronologically through Afro-Cuban Santería rumba, mambo, cha-cha-chá, salsa, breakdancing, and reggaeton, with optional audio tracks reflecting the broader story of Cuban history as revealed in the moves.
In the Presence of Animals
Danfung Dennis, Casey Brown, Phil McNally
Encounter a majestic jaguar deep in the jungle, lie with a nesting sea turtle on a windy beach, and fly with monarch butterflies, all before they disappear.
Kiya
Nonny de la Peña
This harrowing, animated reenactment tells the story of a real-life domestic violence homicide in which two sisters engage in a doomed struggle to save the third from being shot and killed by her ex-boyfriend.
Let’s Go Crazy MADE IN MN
Chuck Olsen
Dem Atlas performs the Prince song “Let’s Go Crazy” in front of thousands of fans who gathered in memory of the artist in front of First Avenue on April 22, 2016.
simRVR MADE IN MN
Bill Gorcica, Mark Gill, Matt Julius, Kristian Twombly
Witness the growing toxicity of a river through the movements of a micro- scopic algae known as a diatom, a valuable indicator of environmental conditions.
Sisters: A Mobile VR Ghost Story
Andrew Goldstein, Robyn Gray, Michael Murdock
Otherworld Interactive presents their popular horror franchise that trans- ports the viewer inside a chilling animated haunted house where sisterly ghosts will scare your pants off.
Sonar
Philipp Maas, Dominik Stockhausen, Alexander Maas
In this superbly crafted CG animation, a drone receives a faint distress call emerging from an unknown asteroid. When it journeys to locate the source of the signal, it ventures into a deep, ancient labyrinth that holds a secret even darker than space itself.
Waves
Benjamin Dickinson, Reggie Watts, Luis Blackaller
Reggie Watts weaves a virtual reality story that is a dream-within-a-dream meta-ride down the rabbit hole, where the only constants seem to be his philosophical musings, comedic insights, and musical genius.
Waves of Grace
Chris Milk, Gabo Arora
This groundbreaking, live-action documentary tells us the story of Decontee Davis, an Ebola survivor who uses her immunity to care for orphaned children in her village in Liberia.
Virtual Reality: The New Frontier is presented in collaboration with Sundance Institute’s New Frontier program and the Walker Art Center.
About the Sundance Institute’s New Frontier Program
Celebrating its 10th anniversary, Sundance Institute’s New Frontier program has provided the highest level of curation in this emerging field since 2007. Incorporating fiction, non-fiction and hybrid projects to showcase innovations in storytelling as it intersects with technology, performance, film, art and music. The works presented in Virtual Reality: The New Frontier include immersive documentaries such as Chris Milk and Gabo Arora’s Waves of Grace, a portrait of a community rebuilding after the Ebola outbreak in Liberia and Lynette Wallworth’s Collisions, a live action/animated documentary about the Martu tribe in western Australia.
About the Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a catalyst for the creative expression of artists and the active engagement of audiences. Focusing on the visual, performing, and media arts of our time, the Walker takes a global, multidisciplinary, and diverse approach to the creation, presentation, interpretation, collection, and preservation of art. Walker programs examine the questions that shape and inspire us as individuals, cultures, and communities.
View more photos from Virtual Reality: The New Frontier on the Northern Spark Flickr here!