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How 'Dinner Party' tells an alien abduction story in VR
At our first Engadget Experience in LA last week, we premiered five virtual reality projects that pushed the boundaries of the new medium. Among them was Dinner Party, a retelling of the famous Betty and Barney Hill alien abduction story. Based on what we've seen so far, it's one of the most intriguing VR entries yet. In our documentary, co-creator Laura Wexler explains how her team brought one of the most famous stories from UFO folklore into virtual reality.
'Untrained Eyes' explores how computers perceive you
If you search for "man" on Google, most of the image results you'll get are of white males looking confidently at the camera. "Woman," meanwhile, brings up pictures of women that appear to have been taken from a male gaze -- and yes, you guessed it, they're also predominately white. That lack of inclusion in machine learning is what "Untrained Eyes," an interactive art installation, aims to shed light on. The project, created by conceptual artist Glenn Kaino and actor/activist Jesse Williams, comes in the form of a sculpture that uses five mirrors and a Kinect to get its point across. Stand in front of it, wave and, within seconds, you'll be presented with an image that will "match" your appearance.
'Dance with flARmingos' hides a deeper discussion behind goofy moves
Flamingos are all legs and pink feathers -- an iconic symbol of kitsch America. They're still a bird though; a species that's struggled against global warming and human development on its habitats. For the past two years, artist Kristin Lucas' work has revolved around flamingos. She's adopted 20 of 'em, but suspected she'd never meet any of them. Dance with flARmingos tries to bring people closer to the bird, combining mixed and augmented reality tricks to immerse the attendee in a flock of strutting flamingos. Lucas' enthusiasm for the bird is infectious -- here's the story behind the project.
What you missed at last week's Engadget Experience
Engadget has been around for 13 years. If you asked me when I joined in 2011, or the site's founders in 2004, how they expected this website to evolve, I'm sure none of us would have guessed that we'd one day be able to call ourselves art curators. But this is 2017, and in the years since it launched, Engadget has changed. No longer do we restrict ourselves to just hardware or even software. The Engadget of today is just as interested in robots, AI, gaming, space travel, design, electric cars, virtual reality, augmented reality, even mixed reality. We cover art, too, as it relates to things like games, storytelling in VR and technology in pop culture. Tech is everywhere now, and we're a more well-rounded publication because of it.
'Dinner Party' is a VR spin on the most famous alien abduction story
It was just a normal dinner party, with music on in the background and guests splintered off in lively conversation. But just as we were about to sit down to eat, our hostess made a startling confession. She and her husband recently went through a traumatic experience. Rather than just spell it out for us, she played an audio recording of a hypnosis session, which turned out to be their retelling of an alien abduction. Okay, it wasn't a typical supper shindig.
'Untrained Eyes' puts an AI spin on looking at yourself in the mirror
What if you stood in front of a mirror and saw someone who barely looked like you? That's exactly what happens in Untrained Eyes, an interactive sculpture debuting today at the Engadget Experience, a one-day event that showcases exhibitions which mix art with technology. Untrained Eyes, created by conceptual artist Glenn Kaino and actor Jesse Williams (Grey's Anatomy), doesn't require a headset to be experienced. Instead, the project uses your face, a mirror, a Kinect and machine-learning to show you pictures of people whom you may look like -- or not.
‘Your Hands Are Feet’ describes feelings where words can’t
The interactive experience Your Hands Are Feet is a smorgasbord of feelings. Take the title example. Creators Amelia Winger-Bearskin and Sarah Rothberg wanted to pinpoint the feeling of shoes not fitting quite right. Ill-fitting footwear is not a catastrophe, but a mild annoyance that bugs you throughout the day. You can still get things done, but not as easily. It's as if, in their minds, their hands were feet. If it does not make sense in words, that's OK. The point of their demo -- whose first playable version debuted at the Engadget Experience today -- is that virtual reality can convey this feeling in a way that other media, like text, can't.
I wore a (virtual) flamingo head while smelling of the wetlands
At 9AM, I was invited to inhale a fragrant cocktail of earthworm, soil, sea and, ugh, sulphur. This first part of Dance With flARmingos sets the stage, coaxing participants to imagine themselves in the wetlands that the iconic flamingo calls home. Iconic yes, but as artist Kristin Lucas noted, plastic flamingos (and other representations) "far outnumber the actual bird."
'Dance with flARmingos' in a mixed reality mating ritual
Flamingos rule everything around her. Her clothes are covered in them. Her workspace is littered with representations of their spindly legs and hot-pink plumes. She's spent hours studying their migratory patterns, mating rituals and native environments. She's traveled the world speaking to conservationists and ornithologists to better understand them. She even adopted 20 of the winged icons to aid in her research and their preservation.
A mirror exposes AI’s inherent flaws in ‘Untrained Eyes’
In July 2015, Google's public-relations machine was in full-on crisis mode. Earlier that year, the search giant announced Photos, an AI-driven app that used machine-learning to automatically tag and organize your pictures based on the people, places and things depicted in them. It was an exciting step forward, but Photos wasn't perfect. While the app was capable of recognizing some faces, it mistook others. It would have been easy to pass this off as a routine software bug if it weren't for the nature of the failure.
‘Dinner Party’ relives an interracial couple’s alien abduction in VR
On the night of September 19th, 1961, Barney and Betty Hill were the victims of the first widely publicized alien abduction in US history. The Hills, an interracial couple active in the civil-rights movement, were on their way home from a trip to Niagara Falls when they noticed an unusual light in the sky. Shaken by the erratic behavior of the UFO, they headed in the direction of the closest town but never made it.
'Your Hands Are Feet' puts you inside a psychedelic egg yolk
Sarah Rothberg is obsessed with the bright-red silicone sponge she bought at Sur La Table. As a sponge, it's worthless -- it's too flimsy to be abrasive, and you can forget about it absorbing liquid -- but when you rub its tiny bristles together the sound is strangely familiar. It's the sound of shaving a giant's leg.
The future of VR is social: A conversation at Engadget Experience
The Engadget Experience is a day-long celebration of the future of entertainment, gaming, media and art in downtown Los Angeles on November 14th. That day, we've invited the top minds in virtual and augmented reality to the Ace Hotel Theater, where they'll showcase their latest projects and dive deep into the state of these new platforms. For instance, is VR a passing fad or is it here to stay? The answer to that question may lie in VR's ability to be social.
Get your Engadget Experience tickets before prices go up this week!
By now we're sure you've heard about The Engadget Experience, an all-day event we're hosting in LA next month that combines five high-tech art installations with a series of panels bringing together the brightest minds in creative and technology circles. If you've been meaning to buy tickets, you'll want to do that this week -- tickets are currently being sold at a 36 percent discount, but they'll rise $70 back to their full price on Friday at about midnight, Pacific Time.
When VR meets human emotions (and sometimes, hallucinations)
By its very nature, virtual reality is an immersive medium. But for Rama Allen, that bar is higher. The interactive artist and Executive Creative Director at The Mill has made a name for himself leading inter-disciplinary teams of designers, filmmakers, coders, editors, engineers and VFX artists to create new kinds of cinematic experiences. At the inaugural Engadget Experience, a tech-art installation happening in LA next month, Allen will share some of his strangest creations, including a collaboration with an emotional AI; a VR experience that uses biometrics for levitation; a sculpting tool for the human voice; and a mixed-reality galactic journey to spread peace across the universe. Buy your tickets here, and hurry because discounted pricing ends next week, on October 27th. We'll see you in LA!
Where are VR and AR headed? We’ll explore at the Engadget Experience.
We're diving head-first into the world of virtual and augmented reality next month at the inaugural Engadget Experience. The event, which takes place at LA's Ace Hotel on November 14th, will bring together pioneering minds in these new mediums. (Tickets are available here.) It's almost impossible to discuss VR and AR without considering how far they've come over the past few years, and where they're headed in the future. That's what we'll be tackling in "The Big Picture," a panel discussion with Marcie Jastrow of the Technicolor Experience Center; Jen Dennis from Ridley Scott's RSA Films; and Ruthie Doyle from Sundance's New Frontier.
Win a trip to LA and two tickets to the Engadget Experience!
Next month Engadget is trying something a little different: We're hosting a series of futuristic art installations and panels, bringing together the brightest minds in art and technology. To make The Engadget Experience happen, we gave out the largest prizes ever in the field of immersive tech -- $100,000 apiece to five visionaries making art out of VR, artificial intelligence and even search results. We are so excited to showcase our winners next month, when the event opens at LA's Ace Hotel on November 14th. Tickets are on sale now at a temporarily reduced price, but one lucky reader can win two free tickets -- plus a boatload of other stuff. We're also throwing in a two-night stay at the Ace Hotel, a $1,000 airfare stipend and a collection of gadgets that includes the Amazon Echo, Samsung Galaxy S8, Samsung Gear VR and a Smarthome automation bundle. Enter here to win -- we hope to see you there!
What to expect from the Engadget Experience, our immersive art + tech event
New mediums like augmented reality, virtual reality and artificial intelligence are pushing the boundaries of art, entertainment, gaming and performance -- but immersive media isn't always accessible. For one day only, we invite you to experience what happens at the outer limits of creativity. The first Engadget Experience is set to bring together some of the brightest minds in technology, art and entertainment next month, and we want you to be there. The agenda is nearly complete, and we're proud to say it's going to be a killer show.
Nonny de la Peña, Eugene Chung illuminate the Engadget Experience
Virtual reality captured the mainstream's imagination in the 1990s, but ultimately failed to deliver on the the medium's potential. Fast forward more than two decades and VR is once again the next big thing. With far more advanced hardware and billions in investment, virtual reality is on the cusp of upending storytelling but the future is still unclear. On November 14th, VR luminaries Eugene Chung and Nonny de la Peña will take the stage at the historic United Artists Theatre at the Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles to help shed some light on how virtual reality and augmented reality are changing the way that we see the world.
The grantees of Engadget’s $500,000 immersive arts program
When we launched the Alternate Realities grant program in May we had no idea what to expect. We saw a need for funding in the arts happening at just the time when new media like AR and VR were starting to go mainstream. So, with support from our parent company, Oath, we set out to fund five immersive art projects that push the limits of storytelling through emerging technologies. The response was overwhelming. Proposals came from as far away as Iran and Australia and ranged in discipline from theater to fashion, documentary to animation. There were multi-million dollar VR productions, animated shorts and escape rooms. (SO. MANY. ESCAPE. ROOMS.)
