It is already certain that there will be an incredible number of virtual reality (VR) titles at the Sheffield Doc/Fest 2016, with numbers always growing each year with the sheer amount of pieces that are created for the tech. Now VR is going to be a massive part of the Alternate Realities Summit that will take place throughout the festival.
There will be two free-of-charge exhibitions specifically for VR during the Alternate Realities Summit, which will be held across two venues which will be the Interactive Exhibition, featuring a prototype of an augmented reality (AR) documentary – which does not seem to be as prevalent as VR documentaries – as well as the Virtual Reality Exhibition, which is described as the one of the leading ones in the UK. As well as these, there will be a site-specific installation of Jane Gauntlet’s In My Shoes: Dancing with Myself.
There will be a series of sessions that will occur throughout the festival: The VRfternoon session with Jessica Brillhart, VR Filmmaker at Google, will talk about The Future of Virtual Reality; 360° Sound for a 360° Experience: Dynamic Binaural Audio in VR; VR & Journalism: Opportunities and Challenges; and VR: The Machine to Make us More Human?
There will also be reveals of VR pieces such as the launch of the UN’s latest VR film, which will focus on gender-based violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which will be followed by an interview with Director, Gabo Arora, by BBC Radio 4.
There will be a couple pieces concentrating on VR in theatre, including All The World’s A Stage, where four producers talk about what we can learn from producing drama in VR, and Interactive Theatre, Technology & Empathy & In My Shoes: Waking in Slough, which will expand more on the previously mentioned piece, In My Shoes: Dancing with Myself.
The festival will take place 10th – 15th June. For more news on VR events, news, and updates, stay with VRFocus.
