Sundance Announces Over 30 VR Experiences Coming to 2016 Festival

It’s 1895, and you’re in a scientific lab inside a massive flying whale. This augmented-reality-to-VR setting, based on Scott Westerfield’s best-selling trilogy Leviathan, lets participants engage physically and emotionally with the setting and with human and animal characters. The best part is the ability to fabricate a brand-new creature.

Artists – Alex McDowell, Bradley Newman; Key Collaborator: World Building Media Lab

Cast – Gildart Jackson, Isabella Schloss, Austin Nimnict, A.J. Helfet, Ellis Greer, Alex Ho

A multiuser immersive platform that combines motion capture with virtual reality headsets allows users to move freely within the physical space, interact with objects and other participants, and virtually visit 3-D interactive environments.

Artists – Sylvain Chagué, Caecilia Charbonnier; Key Collaborators: Bart Kevelham, David Hodgetts

Cast – Gilles Jobin, Susana Panades Diaz

#100humans is the story of the first humans who walked through 8i’s doors to help invent a new medium. Using 3-D video technology to record real people for VR, this story explores a new level of emotional connections and sense of presence that brings viewers the most lifelike intimate experience.

Artists – Daniel Schechter, Linc Gasking, Rainer Gombos; Key Collaborators: Preya McMahon, Alexander Burke, Christina Webber

Cast – Ashley Martin Scott, Logan Paul, Young Guru, Denise Garcia, Brent Bushnell

Encounter an 80-foot blue whale while experiencing the awe, wonder, and majesty of underwater habitats, designed as beautiful moments in passing or a collection of memories.

See Also: ‘TheBlu: Encounter’ – Face to Face with a Giant of the Sea

Artists – Jake Rowell, Neville Spiteri, Ben Vance

theBlu: The Encounter demo can be experienced on HTC Vive. Check out our hands-on article!

In this futuristic, sci-fi virtual reality 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. The reunion is bittersweet, as the passage of time has caused her loved ones to become strangers.

Artist – Randal Kleiser; Key Collaborator: Tanna Frederick

Cast – Carl Weathers, Bruce Davison, Tanna Frederick, Christopher Atkins, Ethan Rains, Clinton Valencia

Uniquely designed for room-scale VR, this interactive art experience gives the viewer an intimate connection to the possibilities and wonders of space, where mysterious phenomena, hidden beauty, and the infinite await.

Artist – Ben Vance; Key Collaborators: Sam Bird, Joel Corelitz

Irrational Exuberance is coming soon to HTC Vive.

This experience of manning an office cubicle is a unique blend of storytelling, comedy, and intuitive game mechanics that focuses on micro-interactions. Pick up a tomato, smash a glass, and explore a sandbox world with childlike wonder, while ignoring established gaming systems.

Artists – Alex Schwartz, Devin Reimer

Job Simulator is coming to soon HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and PlayStation VR.

Step into the shoes of astronaut Mark Watney as he performs tasks that will facilitate his chances for survival and rescue. Viewers can fly onto the surface of Mars, steer at zero gravity through space, and drive a rover, deepening the experience of key scenes from Ridley Scott’s hit film, The Martian.

See Also: ‘The Martian’ VR Sneak Peek Hits Gear VR, 15-20 Minute Experience Debuts in 2016

Artists – Robert Stromberg, Ridley Scott; Key Collaborators: Fox Innovation Lab, RSA Films, VRC

The Martian VR Experience preview is currently available on Samsung Gear VR’s Milk VR application.

A teenage girl becomes guardian of the last city on Earth to change its fate by fusing her instinctive knowledge of nature with an AI’s benevolence, analysis, and foresight. This interactive animated series made for virtual reality relies on your focus for the story to evolve.

Artists – Emilie Joly, Sylvain Joly, Michaël Martin; Key Collaborators: Maria Beltran Reyes, John Howe, Richard Johnson

Cast – Peter Coyote, Morgan Burch

When a drone receives a faint distress call emerging from an unknown asteroid, it journeys to locate the source of the signal and ventures into a deep, ancient labyrinth that holds a secret even darker than space itself.

See Also: Review – Descend into a 360 3D Abyss with SONAR on Gear VR

Artists – Philipp Maas, Dominik Stockhausen

Download for Oculus Rift DK2

A virtual reality collaboration between Vrse.works creator Andrew Thomas Huang and Björk explores the possibilities that VR holds for performance platforms outside of the traditional music video world.

Artist – Andrew Thomas Huang; Key Collaborator: Björk Guðmundsdóttir

Cast – Björk

An abstract meditation on the evolutionary process and its relentless march towards complexity, this virtual reality music video was produced over the course of a year, with Arjan van Meertan creating all of the music, animation, and code himself.

See Also: ‘Surge’ is a Real-time VR Music Video You Don’t Want to Miss

Artist – Arjan van Meerten

Download for Oculus Rift DK2

This immersive documentary unveils a journey into the heart of the First World War through hundreds of photographs that were found in the abandoned workshop of a country house in Quebec, Canada.

Artists – Loic Suty, Osman Zeki, Claudine Matte; Key Collaborators: Catherine Mavrikakis, François Lafontaine

Cast – Julian Casey, François Papineau

In this experience viewers are transported to the most populous slum in the capital city of Liberia, where Decontee Davis, an Ebola survivor, uses her immunity to help others affected by the disease.

Artists – Gabo Arora, Chris Milk; Key Collaborators: Imraan Ismail, Samantha Storr, Patrick Milling Smith

Cast – Decontee Davis

Four generations of an Italian noble family are cursed by the corrupt power of an ancient book unearthed from the catacombs beneath their estate. Rich with traditional gothic-inspired mythology, the story follows a scion of this cursed family attempting to shield his heirs from the inevitable darkness.

Artists – Michael Conelly, Lyndon Barrois; Key Collaborators: Keith Goldfarb, William Telford Cast: JB Blanc

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.

Artists – Benjamin Dickinson, Reggie Watts, Luis Blackaller; Key Collaborators: Anthony Batt, Neville Spiteri

Cast – Reggie Watts, Nathalie Emmanuel

Trapped in an active war zone, two parents struggle to distract their young daughter by inventing a fantastical tale. Inspired by true events, this immersive VR experience transports the viewer to the family’s makeshift basement shelter. As the bombs draw closer and closer, the parents’ fairy tale intensifies.

Artists – Milica Zec, Winslow Porter; Key Collaborators: E.A. Donahue, Jack Caron, Todd Bryant

Cast – Zoë Winters, Clem Mcintosh, Jordana Rose

Right now, more than 80,000 people are locked in tiny concrete boxes where every element of their environment is controlled. They are confined to spaces with no human contact, and the sensory deprivation they endure causes severe psychological damage. These people are invisible to us—and eventually to themselves.

Artists – The Guardian; Key Collaborators: Lindsay Poulton, Francesca Panetta

This immersive VR experience puts the audience on the scene with anti-abortion extremists trying to intimidate patients seeking sexual and reproductive health care at Planned Parenthood. Using documentary footage and a montage of real audio, viewers gain intimate knowledge of the harassment outside and compassion inside health centers across the country.

Artists – Nonny de la Peña, Brad Lichtenstein, Jeff Fitzsimmons Cast: Samantha Collier, Kristina Nailen, Raegan McDonald-Mosley MD, Charles Gilbert, Lee Sherman, Joe Spence

A virtual reality experiment questions the ethics of artificial-intelligence algorithms in self-driving cars when they are faced with difficult decisions during an unavoidable crash event. Given varied cultural and individual ethics, who should be designing these algorithms, and how should they be chosen?

Artists – Vincent McCurley, Loc Dao

Journey to a remote desert in western Australia that is home to indigenous leader Nyarri Morgan and the Martu tribe. Nyarri’s first contact with Western culture was in the 1950s via a dramatic collision between his traditional world view and the cutting edge of modern technology.

Artist – Lynette Wallworth

Cast – Nyarri Nyarri Morgan, Curtis Taylor

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. This powerful virtual reality experience is a glimpse into the habitats of Earth’s endangered species.

Artists – Danfung Dennis, Casey Brown, Phil McNally; Key Collaborators: Jay Brown, Andrew Delpit, Chris McClanahan

Fall down the rabbit hole and experience the magical and vibrant digital world of the Royal National Theater’s wonder.land stage show. Watch and listen with VR technology as the Cheshire cat hovers above like a magnificent holographic airship while serenading you to “Fabulous,” a song from the show.

Artists – Toby Coffey, Lysander Ashton, Ollie Lindsey; Key Collaborator: Mahdi Yahya

Cast – Hal Fowler

A day in the life of a tight-knit community in South Central Los Angeles.

Artist – Janicza Bravo

Cast – Keith Stanfield, Brandon Scott, Hannah Heller, Idara Victor, Jodie Smith

Organic, spontaneous, sexy 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. This live-action virtual reality documentary was filmed on location in Cuba and features Ballet de la Televisión Cubana.

Artist – Lucy Walker

Cast – Ballet de la Televisión Cubana

In this harrowing virtual reality story of a real-life domestic violence homicide, two sisters engage in a doomed struggle to save the third from being shot and killed by her ex-boyfriend. Utilizing audio and imagery captured at the real event, this piece transforms the audience from viewers to active witnesses.

Artist – Nonny de la Peña; Key Collaborator: Emblematic Group

Cast – Lee Sherman, Toyin Moses, Tripp Pickell, Diana Toshiko

Witness the Maasai tribe’s living heritage in the village of Enkutoto, Kenya, through repeated walkabout visuals in the Great Rift Valley. Watch jumping-dance competitions, the men’s unmatched hunting abilities, and the women’s skills in building mud houses, long-distance water collection, and bead artwork.

Artists – Felix Lajeunesse, Paul Raphael; Key Collaborator: Stephane Rituit

In this episode of Nomads, viewers share the Bajau tribe’s nomadic existence on crammed houseboats that sway to the motion of river waters. Watch as the families travel with fellow boat-dwelling relatives, always sharing a communal spirit.

Artists – Felix Lajeunesse, Paul Raphael; Key Collaborators: Stephane Rituit, Jean-Pascal Beaudoin

After losing his sight in 1983, John Hull began to record an audio-diary documenting his discovery of “a world beyond sight.” Hull’s original recordings form the basis of this interactive documentary, which uses real-time 3-D, virtual reality, and binaural sound to explore the world of the blind.

Artists – Arnaud Colinart, Amaury Laburthe, Peter Middleton, James Spinney; Key Collaborators: Arnaud Desjardins, Béatrice Lartigue, Fabien Togman

Cast – John Hull

When two men are stopped by a police officer, a simple misdemeanor spirals out of control, turning the situation rapidly antagonistic. With each party suspecting the other, no one is able to stop the chain of events that follows.

Artists – Rose Troche, Morris May; Key Collaborator: Charles Ottaway

Cast – Shemar Jonas, Javon Jones, Joey Auzenne, Johnny Tchaikovsky

An immersive, animated VR film crafted by the artists, hackers and storytellers of Penrose Studios, The Rose and I is about loneliness, friendship, love, and loss. Come meet a lonely Rose living in the unlikeliest of places, and be transported into a brand new universe. Cast: Rachael Bigelow.

Artists – Eugene Chung, Jimmy Maidens, Alex Woo; Key Collaborators: Terry Kaleas, Ryan Shore, Nick Sung

Be careful where you look because someone or something doesn’t want you here. Otherworld presents two chapters in their popular horror series. Experience two sets of thrills and chills as you physically walk through a haunted house and experience a virtual reality ghost story that will scare your pants off.

Artists – Robyn Gray, Andrew Goldstein, Michael Murdock; Key Collaborator: Philip Eberhart

Cast – Julia Chalker, Greg Vogt

Download for Google Cardboard (Android)

Three women and four men, all naked, appear out of nowhere in the white, sunny space of a bright room outside of time. They meet, touch, share their energy, and are transformed spiritually; they let themselves become one with the world.

Artists – Michel Reilhac, Carl Guyenette; Key Collaborators: Mélanie Le Grand, Xavier Servas, Sebastian Shorter

Cast – Amador Jojo, Ayoti, Christophe De La Pointe, De La Fouquette, Flozif, Yumie Volupté