Best Lab Creature Podcasts (2024)

1
Katherine Baxter: Elephants Don't Like Sunflowers 40:47

9d ago40:47

40:47

"So this relationship to ourselves, to other people, to other animals - whether farm animals or wild animals, it's very bizarre how we have gotten it so twisted in what we expect and what we feel entitled to over here in the the Global North." - Katherine Baxter Katherine Baxter is the CEO of the Africa Network for Animal Welfare-USA (ANAW). ANAW-U…

1
#1416: Preview of Venice Immersive 2024 Innovations in Immersive Storytelling & Art Installations with Curators 1:07:48

20d ago1:07:48

1:07:48

The 8th edition of the Venice Immersive 2024 will be kicking off on August 28th, which will be featuring over 28 hours of immersive storytelling and immersive art content across over 70 different projects. This year there area a lot more immersive installations representing over a third out of the total number of on-site projects (18 out of the 52)…

1
#1415: Evolution of Holographic VJ Trends in VRChat Clubbing Scene Culminates with Awe-Inspiring Show Using SNR Labs Shader 1:23:44

20d ago1:23:44

1:23:44

The Night Under Lights Presents: The Seasons at the Moon Pool (replayable VRChat link and video) shown during Raindance Immersive was one of the most immersive music experiences I've ever had in VR so far. It was so awe-inspiring and incredible to see 3 DJ / VJ sets using the SNR Labs particle-screen version of their holographic Apple Global Illumi…

1
Emma Hakansson: Collective Fashion Justice 35:59

24d ago35:59

35:59

“There are more native crocodiles living in cages and concrete pens that are owned by Hermes or supplying Louis Vuitton than live in their natural habitat. So, that is so clearly not conservation. And we're talking like hundreds of thousands of crocodiles.” – Emma Hakansson We are destroying the planet, killing billions of animals and making life i…

1
#1414: SoftlySteph’s Groundbreaking “The Friction of a Modulated Soul” Wins Best Dance Experience at Raindance Immersive 1:09:19

23d ago1:09:19

1:09:19

SoftlySteph's The Friction of a Modulated Soul took home the Best Dance Experience at Raindance Immersive in a groundbreaking performance that tells the "story about the different cages that bind us from our authentic truth." It's a piece that completely blew me away with it's technological innovations, her fluid and emotionally-driven dance, a mov…

1
#1413: New Holographic Shader for VJs by SNR Labs Enables Awe-Inspiring Volumetric Lighting, Capture, & Dance Performances at Raindance Immersive 1:31:32

24d ago1:31:32

1:31:32

There was a new holographic shader developed by members of SNR Labs group on VRChat that completely blew me away in how it was used in a couple of performances at Raindance Immersive. It's like a new form of volumetric capture that also has lighting effects, and can be used in translating 2D images into 3D or capturing low-res 3D objects into a sor…

1
#1412: “Shadow Canyon” Combines Immersive Dance, VRChat World Building, & Theatre to Win Spirit of Raindance Award 1:20:47

27d ago1:20:47

1:20:47

Shadow Canyon: A Puppeteer's Tale is a unique blend of VRChat Worldbuilding by nprowler, immersive dance performances by students of the VR Dance Academy founded by Dust Bunny, and then improv actors and immersive theatre staging led by Mycana. Overall, it was such a unique blend of different disciplines that the curators of Raindance Immersive awa…

1
#1411: How VRChat World Building Shaped FlowersRite’s Best Music Experience at Raindance Immersive 49:26

1M ago49:26

49:26

FlowersRite (花之祭P) is a music producer, 3D artist, cosplayer, and VRChat world builder who won the Best Music Experience at Raindance Immersive 2024 with her experience called Children of the Seed. Within a couple of days of discovering VR in 2019, she had bought a PC, HTC Vive, and Vive Trackers to do full-body tracking, and has slowly been transi…

1
#1410: Fostering Resonite’s Collaborative Maker Culture with Creator Jam Founder Medra 1:59:50

1M ago1:59:50

1:59:50

Medra is the CEO and founder of the Creator Jam, which is a non-profit that's been consistently organizing weekly and monthly collaborative-building events within the social VR platform of Resonite (and originally within Neos VR) since June 2, 2019. Resonite's technological architecture allows for the rendering and editing of content in real-time i…

1
Pete Paxton: Good People Who Do Bad Things 49:17

1M ago49:17

49:17

"I cannot put enough emphasis on this. I have seen so many things that are so weird that even when I would show it to law enforcement at first, before there were like a lot of these cases coming out, law enforcement would look and they'd be like, “what? Why would someone do this?” Right? As if what I'm showing them wasn't real. And what I learned t…

1
#1409: 3D Artist VR Pipelines & Creating “Suku” Immersive Art World as a Living Painting with Durk van der Meer 1:09:50

1M ago1:09:50

1:09:50

The VRChat world Suku took home the Best Art World prize at Raindance Immersive 2024, and it's by Durk van der Meer who is a freelance digital artist, character artist, and VR world builder based in Curaçao. Suku blends together elements of Caribbean culture and geography with Dutch colonial architecture combined with a sort of psychedelic Studio G…

1
#1408: Documenting Arts & Cultural Trends in Social VR with The Metaculture Online Magazine by K. Guillory + The VRChat Origin Story 1:38:41

1M ago1:38:41

1:38:41

K. Guillory (aka Aemeth) has been writing The Metaculture online magazine since August 13, 2021 with over 70 articles covering the latest trends in arts and culture on social VR platforms such as VRChat. She focuses primarily on the live music and performance scenes, but also has been tracking the historical evolution of the underground clubbing sc…

1
#1407: Supporting XR Innovation in Play with Creature Game Studio and Label with Doug North Cook 1:01:37

2M ago1:01:37

1:01:37

Doug North Cook is the CEO and Creative Director for Creature, which is both an immersive game studio and label announced a year ago that's representing 10 different XR studios and 16 projects slated as far out as 2027. Creature had four different projects with announcements as a part of the UploadVR Summers Showcase 2024 on June 26th that included…

1
#1406: The Magic of the “Thrasher” Ribbon Dance Game Mechanic in Hand Tracking vs VR Controllers 1:07:16

2M ago1:07:16

1:07:16

Thrasher is a really compelling VR game with a very satisfying and magical core game mechanic inspired by ribbon dancing. It's the latest VR game from Brian Gibson, who designed the art and music for the VR rhythm game Thumper, as he teamed up with former Harmonix co-worker Mike Mandel via Puddle Studio. Thrasher was also partially inspired by the …

1
#1405: Mixed Reality Game Design from Cubism to Laser Dance with Thomas van Bouwel 1:02:55

2M ago1:02:55

1:02:55

Laser Dance is a mixed reality game by solo XR game developer Thomas van Bouwel, who previously released minimalist puzzle game called Cubism. I had a chance to try out Laser Dance through Raindance Immersive, and it's one of those types of games that I think will really help define some of the key affordances of successful mixed reality games that…

1
#1404: Prolific VRChat Documentarian Madame Kana Wins Discovery Award at Raindance Immersive 2024 57:44

2M ago57:44

57:44

Madame Kana is a French, transgender woman and VReporter who has been publishing a new documentary about VRChat every 2-3 weeks for the past year on her YouTube channel, and she won the Discovery Award this year at Raindance Immersive 2024 for her short film called New Eden Evergarden; Behind the Magic. She published a 39-minute documentary about l…

1
Ingrid Newkirk: 75 Years of Badassery 36:02

2M ago36:02

36:02

“You asked what kind of army we are. Cleveland Amory once said it. He said, “the army of the kind.” And that's it. If there's anything going on, we find it irresistible not to speak out, to do something, to say something, to enlist other people to help because we're not some superhuman force, we're a collection of humans.” Ingrid Newkirk Ingrid New…

1
#1403: A Tour through the Indie Artist Scene and Collectives on VRChat with BabyBonito 58:02

2M ago58:02

58:02

BabyBonito is an artist, avatar creator and worldbuilder within VRChat who participant different VRChat communities including a creative collective in VR called GlitchesVR, which has a substack that covers the latest in virtual culture. As a classically trained artist Bonito first got into VR through the process of creating her own avatars, which h…

1
#1402: Using VR to Pursue a Career in Filmmaking & Overcome Social Anxiety with Ariel Emerald 1:53:48

2M ago1:53:48

1:53:48

Ariel Emerald is a VR filmmaker who has had a short film titled Ulterior Motives and music video screen titled Like Crazy at Raindance Immersive for the past two years. Before getting into social VR, she suffered from social anxiety and isolation, and didn't have the resources to pursue a career in film. But getting into virtual reality via VRChat …

1
#1401: TFMJonny’s Journey from Singing in VR to VTuber Navigating the Content Creation Ecosystem 1:00:58

2M ago1:00:58

1:00:58

TFMJonny is a full-time VTuber content creator with more than a million subscribers on YouTube and TikTok, but also does Twtich livestreams, releases music on Spotify, and has a background in acting, voices acting, and improv (more links are here on his Linktree). It's a journey that started with live singing within The Great Pug in VRChat, and the…

1
Vanessa Barboni Hallik: Another Tomorrow 35:27

2M ago35:27

35:27

“50% of clothing that gets created ends up in a landfill in the first year. When we're using way too much resource in the first place, the fact that half of that is going directly to landfill in the first year is insane. And then, what actually makes it into our closets, we wear about 20% of on a trailing 12 month basis. So if you think about just …

1
#1400: Becoming Starheart: A VTuber’s Creative Journey in Finding Her Authentic Voice & Identity in VRChat 1:11:17

2M ago1:11:17

1:11:17

Starheart is a Musician, Composer, Filmmaker, and VTuber who has been doing live performances in VR over the past couple of years. She started making music videos on Halloween of 2022, and realized that she needed a persistent avatar. VR had already been creating a safe space for her to anonymously experiment with and discover her identity as a tra…

1
#1399: Cosm Opens Front-Facing Dome Venue with Capacity of 1500 in Los Angeles 49:43

3M ago49:43

49:43

Cosm is a front-facing, 180-degree, 87-foot diameter, 8K+ LED dome screen that can seat up to 1500 people. Their first location is opening in Los Angeles this weekend showing UFC 303, which is produced by their Cosm Immersive division (formerly LiveLikeVR) focusing on live sporting events, music, entertainment. They also have a Cosm Studios divisio…

1
Melanie Challenger: Animals in the Room 41:58

3M ago41:58

41:58

“I think one of the reasons dignity matters to animals is that they are objectified. They are stripped of their agency very often, and they're also caught up in power relations with human beings that do not go in their favor in, in the overwhelming number of cases. But it's also grounds why they have a right to be subjects of justice, doesn't it? S…

1
#1398: Ru’s Journey from Hospice Nurse to DJ, Artist, & Kaleidosky Event Producer in VRChat 1:04:17

3M ago1:04:17

1:04:17

Ru is a transgender woman who works as a hospice nurse in Ohio, and since 2018 has been involved as an immersive artists, virtual DJ, and event producer holding weekly events in her psychedelic space called Kaleidosky, which is nominated for Best Music Experience for Raindance Immersive 2024. I had a chance to get a tour of her Kaleidosky 3.0 event…

1
#1397: The Troll Project Aims to Create Community-Based Interventions for Trolling & Record Ethnographic Interviews 1:07:38

3M ago1:07:38

1:07:38

The Troll Project was created by Ruth Diaz, who has a doctorate in clinical psychology and focuses on XR community design, in order to explore the root causes of trolling, but also tackling the issue head on within social VR spaces with some community-driven solutions that she has experimented with. She's recorded a number of ethnographic interview…

1
#8th Wall Releases Web-Based Game Engine “Niantic Studio” to Render WebXR Experiences 53:19

3M ago53:19

53:19

Today Niantic's 8th Wall is announcing Niantic Studio, which is "a new visual interface for Niantic 8th Wall developers that offers an entirely new way to build immersive 3D and XR experiences." It's essentially a web-based game engine using three.js that can render WebXR experiences and starts to integrate a few of Niantic's Lightship APIs, but wi…

1
#1395: Apple Vision Pro as Screen Replacement Power User Brad Lynch on Overlays & Multi-App XR 1:20:13

3M ago1:20:13

1:20:13

YouTuber Brad Lynch (aka SadlyItsBradley) has completely replaced all of his computer screens with an Apple Vision Pro, even going as far as getting a headless Mac Book Pro that does not even have a screen. He's been using the Apple Vision Pro for around 8 hours a day since launch, and I wanted to get a sense of how he's been using it. It turns out…

1
#1394: Discussion about VRChat Layoffs & Paths to Profitability with Four Community Members 1:39:34

3M ago1:39:34

1:39:34

On June 12, 2024, VRChat announced they were laying off 30% of their staff, and they posted a letter to all employees sent from CEO Graham Gaylor that said, "We’re reducing the size of our team by around 30% and saying goodbye to many talented team members in the process. This is the hardest change we’ve had to make at VRChat, and Jesse and I take …

1
Gene Grant: Scores of Chimpanzees Are Still Stuck in Labs 37:07

3M ago37:07

37:07

“Anybody with half a heart could understand that this is a very bad deal for these feeling beings. Waking up every day at the same place where these horrible things happened, it's not right.” – Gene Grant It’s been almost a decade since the National Institutes of Health ended the use of chimpanzees for biomedical research. But today we still have s…

1
#1393: Overview of Raindance Immersive 2024 Selection Featuring Social VR Indie Artists & Virtual Culture 1:29:11

3M ago1:29:11

1:29:11

Raindance Immersive 2024 opened last weekend in VRChat, and will run for the next four weekends featuring the latest innovations of virtual culture with 77% of experiences happening on social VR platforms and 69% that feature VRChat. I spoke at length with co-curators Mária Rakušanová and Joe Hunting about each of the 36 experiences that span nine …

1
#1392: The Story Behind Tribeca Immersive’s Pivot Towards Immersive Art with Curator Ana Brzezińska 1:25:16

4M ago1:25:16

1:25:16

Curator Ana Brzezińska announced the Tribeca Immersive 2024 line-up on May 23, 2024 mentioning that "this year we are not presenting any VR/AR experiences," but rather that they're pivoting this year to featuring eight immersive art pieces by six different artists being shown at Mērcer Labs: Museum of Art and Technology, which first opened to the N…

1
#1391: ILM Immersive’s “What If…?” Marvel Experience Forges a New Genre of Immersive Storytelling blending 3D Movie Cinematics with First-Person Embodiment 51:22

4M ago51:22

51:22

ILM Immersive & Marvel Studios is releasing What If...?: An Immersive Story exclusively on Apple Vision Pro tomorrow, and I had a chance to take an early look and speak with producer and executive producer Shereif Fattouh as well as technical art director Indira Guerrieri about the process of creating this experience. It's mostly an immersive story…

1
Chloe Sorvino: Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed and the Fight for the Future of Meat 37:42

4M ago37:42

37:42

“There was a farmer who I met. He had the craziest [story], but not crazy because it's happening everywhere. A hog horn rammed into him and he got a disease. No one had any idea what it was. He went septic. He almost died. And he figured out that his herd had gotten an antibiotic resistant bug because of the way he was farming.” – Chloe Sorvino Chl…

1
#1390: First Edition of Cannes Film Festival Immersive Competition with Elie Lavasseur 46:40

4M ago46:40

46:40

The 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival is featuring an inaugural Immersive Competition with eight pieces in competition along with six pieces outside of competition. I had a chance to speak with Elie Lavasseur, the Head of Immersive Competition Festival de Cannes, to get a bit more context for how this came about, their curatorial intention, …

1
#1389: Elemental Theory of Presence + Primer on Experiential Design& Immersive Storytelling 1:05:55

4M ago1:05:55

1:05:55

One of the most common ways to describe the experience of VR is through the lens of presence, and in this episode I'm going to do a deep dive into the existing academic literature of presence in order to more fully contextualize my approach to it. This is my Storycon 2022 keynote where I elaborate on my elemental approach to presence as well as my …

1
#1388: Ultimate Potential of VR: Promises & Perils Featured Session from SXSW 2023 1:04:05

4M ago1:04:05

1:04:05

May of 2024 marks the ten-year anniversary of the Voices of VR podcast, and I wanted to air a featured session that I presented at SXSW 2023 called "The Ultimate Potential of VR: Promises and Perils." This is a 45-minute talk that distills down the biggest insights from my 3-hour episode #1000 of the Voices of VR podcast, which aggregated 120 of th…

1
Talking with the Engineer About Poetry: L.S. McKee on Creature, Wing, Heart, Machine and a Dept Head PSA 52:16

4M ago52:16

52:16

L.S. McKee joins us in the lab to talk about her new collection of poetry, Creature, Wing, Heart, Machine. Laura and I taught 2.009 together for a few years before she moved down south. Laura was a lecturer in the Writing, Rhetoric, and Professional Communication Program at MIT before moving on to UGA, Athens, where she is Coordinator for Writing A…

1
Nina Rao: Saving Wild Tigers 46:57

4M ago46:57

46:57

“We want to know that we're not separate from all beings - because most of our grief, our fear, our anger comes from feeling separate, not feeling connected, we're constantly finding ways to connect.” – Nina Rao Nina Rao runs an organization called Saving Wild Tigers, a project that raises funds and supports conservation efforts for tigers througho…

1
#1387: Landscape of XR Ethics: A Retrospective Presentation by Kent Bye 27:18

5M ago27:18

27:18

This is a 19-minute talk that I gave at Laval Virtual 2023 that is summarizing the work that I've done on XR Ethics over the past ten years. There's around 60 slides in this talk, and so you may prefer watching the video version over on YouTube for the full multi-modal experience, or this audio-only podcast version includes the Q&A session at the e…

1
Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy: Our Kindred Creatures 37:09

5M ago37:09

37:09

"I think that's often the solution when feeling sort of bogged down in the issues of our day is when you zoom out and you look at sort of the whole arc of change, you can sort of get inspired that, yeah, we've come a long way." - Monica Murphy Bill Wasik is the editorial director of The New York Times Magazine and Monica Murphy is a veterinarian an…

1
#1386: Chatting about Apple Vision Pro with fxpodcast’s Mike Seymour 1:07:21

5M ago1:07:21

1:07:21

The contributing editor and co-founder of fxguide Mike Seymour invited me onto his fxpodcast to share some of my thoughts on the Apple Vision Pro, the ecosystem differences between the Quest and Vision Pro, the potential for different killer apps, and where we see it going in the future. This is a rebroadcast of fxpodast episode #368, but with some…

1
#1385: OpenXR 1.1 Release Promotes Extensions into Core & Marks Yearly Release Cycle for Prominent XR Industry Open Standard 51:56

5M ago51:56

51:56

The OpenXR 1.1 minor release comes out today, which moves some of the more commonly used extensions into core and it also marks a new Khronos Group commitment to a yearly release cycle. It's been nearly five years since the initial release of OpenXR 1.0 on July 29, 2019, and Khronos Group President Neil Trevett tells me that it's been one of the mo…

1
#1384: 2019 Flashback to OpenXR 1.0 Release at SIGGRAPH 20:21

5M ago20:21

20:21

I'm digging into my unpublished interview archives backlog to publish this conversation with Khronos Group President Neil Trevett marking the 1.0 release of OpenXR that happened during SIGGRAPH in July 2019. We talk about the intention of OpenXR as a specification, and I figured that it's worth looking back at the evolution of the specification as …

1
#1383: 2018 Flashback to OpenXR First Look at GDC 33:06

5M ago33:06

33:06

OpenXR 1.1 is being released today, and so I'm digging into my archive of unpublished interviews to go back GDC 2018 when OpenXR working group chairman Nick Whiting presented some of the first information about the OpenXR specification, which wouldn't have it's initial release over a year later on July 29, 2019 (see episode #1384 for more on that).…

1
Suzanne Lee: BIOFABRICATE 42:12

5M ago42:12

42:12

“Wouldn't it be amazing if you went into Nike Town and the same pair of shoes or the same style [but]each pair was different because it had been grown and was not the result of a plastic, you know, a plastic polymer or an animal that had been so heavily finished that they all look the same. That, or me, would be mind blowing, where you and I could …

1
Dr. Patricia Wright: For the Love of Lemurs 55:18

5M ago55:18

55:18

“He called me into his office and he said, ‘you see that picture above my desk?’ I said, ‘yes.’ It kind of looked like an animal that reminded me of a squirrel. He said, ‘that is a lemur that we think is extinct in the wild. If you can, please go to Madagascar and find out if it's extinct or not.’” – Patricia Wright Dr. Patricia Wright is an anthro…

1
#1382: Interactive Generative AI Storytelling Installation “The Golden Key” Wins Top Prize at SXSW Leveraging Archetypal Folklore Motifs + Links to SXSW 2024 Coverage 1:01:41

5M ago1:01:41

1:01:41

I interviewed The Golden Key co-directors Matthew Niederhauser & Marc Da Costa remotely during SXSW XR Experience 2024. See more context in the rough transcript below.Here is all of my coverage of projects in and around SXSW XR Experience 2024:#1360: Sneak Peak of SXSW XR Experience Projects, Events, & Lounges with Programmer Blake Kammerdiener#136…

1
#1381: “Soul Paint” Wins SXSW Special Jury Prize for Innovative Body Mapping Technique to Spatially Draw Your Emotions 54:52

5M ago54:52

54:52

I interviewed Soul Paint co-directors Sarah Ticho & Niki Smit remotely ahead of the SXSW XR Experience 2024. See more context in the rough transcript below.This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.Music: FatalityBy Kent Bye

1
#1380: “Reimagined Volume III: Young Thang” Adapts a Nigerian Folktale while Refining the Grammar of Spatial Storytelling 1:02:19

5M ago1:02:19

1:02:19

I interviewed Reimagined Volume III: Young Thang director Melissa Joyner and co-directors Julie Cavaliere & Michaela Ternasky-Holland remotely after the SXSW XR Experience 2024. See more context in the rough transcript below.This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.Music: Fatality…

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