Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/710451
BITS & PIECES www.postmagazine.com 4 POST JULY 2016 A LOOK AT SIGGRAPH'S VR VILLAGE PLANS VANCOUVER — Denise Quesnel is the program chair for this year's VR Village, which will be pre- sented at the Anaheim Convention Center when SIGGRAPH 2016 takes place, from July 24th through the 28th. This year marks the second appearance of the VR Village, following its debut in Los Angeles last summer. Here, Quesnel provides Post with an idea of what attendees can expect, what they've learned from last year's effort. How much space is SIGGRAPH dedicating to the VR Village this year? "Even though the Anaheim Convention Center is quite small, VR Village has a pretty big chunk of the hall. What we are calling the 'experiential venues,' which in the past has been everything from VR Village, to Studios, to Art Gallery and Emerging Technologies — those four programs are being grouped together into the Experience Hall. What that means for the VR Village area is that although it does have its own section — Studio and Art Gallery and Emerging Tech are all close in size this year — it bleeds into Studio and Emerging Technologies a little bit, which is a nice reflection of the submissions that were accepted this year. They do integrate a lit- tle bit of Emerging Technology and Studio into VR." The VR Village is all about experience, and less about technology? "No commercial material will be on the floor. That was a decision that was as tricky as it was straight- forward. This is a long-time SIGGRAPH thing. We want to make sure the exhibit hall stays dedicated to exhibitors, who have a very specific focus when they come to SIGGRAPH. And the Experience Hall stays just for those who are in the early stages — prototyping, or content creators, maybe they create art installations, maybe it's healthcare — none the less, it is going to look so different from an exhibit floor. It's going to be an artistic/technical space. It's 100 percent focused on the attendee experience, which really aligns with SIGGRAPH's vision." Did you see an increase in this year's submissions? "[We were] inundated. It was such an incredible experience. This is the first year of the VR Village being adjudicated, meaning all of the submissions came through the general submission process. We had record-breaking submissions. It's only our second year in, but it eclipsed the submissions that Emerging Technologies and Studio [received] by 40. I think we had 120 or 130, and each submission takes 10 minutes to watch and review, so that was a time-consuming process. We had a great jury and they knew what to look for and what to be weary of. Out of [those] we were allocated to review, we accepted 12 installations and 10 short films." SIGGRAPH, it seems, has always had an eye on virtual reality? "Last year was really reaction to what was going on. VR has always been so rooted in SIGGRAPH, since like '92 and '93, in that it eventually became 'Emerging Technologies.' It's always come up and down, and had a large academic focus. And as years went on and studios started paying more attention to SIGGRAPH as a major venue for them, we started seeing it bleed together a bit. It goes silent outside of the academic space, only to blast off again four years ago." How has the VR Village evolved? "I wasn't meant to be onboard until 2016, and I came on a year early because it was just happening so quick. Last year it was as beautiful as it was chaotic. We had 78 total submissions that would swap out every day, so you never really saw the same thing twice. That was the chaos. But for most people, that was their first time touching VR and AR, and they sure got a lot of different experiences in one go. "This year is a lot more focused. Now we know what attendees are starting to like, and what they like are installations that allow them to do things that they can't do at home or work right now. Whether that means they utilize the space in a different way, or technology, or maybe it's an unli- censed technology that's currently in development, or content that you just can't set up — this is the place to experience that." How do you feel the VR business is evolving? "It's such an exciting time right now that just watch- ing how things go isn't an option anymore. If you've got an idea for a project, the best idea is to jump right in and start making errors and iterating like crazy. The nice thing right now is everybody is on this even playing ground. Some players are starting to emerge and it's very exciting, but for the most part, anyone can crack open Unity or Unreal, and create right on the spot." — BY MARC LOFTUS For the full interview, visit postmagazine.com.