The Sundance Film Festival next year will mark the return to Park City, Utah, after the celebration was immediately canceled last year. But Sundance did not give up on the digital platform used to stream film and bring Cinephiles to the VR social hub last January. As part of his new border exhibition, Sundance plans to expand the spaceship, a virtual place where the audience can chat together and explore VR and mixed reality art installations.
In an effort to connect the Sundance Online participants with its global online audience, the festival will also launch the “Biodigital Bridge” at Park City. Shari Frilot, Sundance Senior Programmer and Chairman of the New Border Curator, described it as a human scale screen where physical and digital participants will be able to interact with each other. Developed along with the active theory of immersive studios, bridges will offer basic chat support, but most are ways for sundance-goers to see how other participants enjoy the event.
Frontier said new Frontier has pushed the concept of biodigital experience for several years now, mostly through exploration of how technology can intersect with our lives. Think about the way applications like Uber, or even Google Maps, have reshaped the way we navigate physical spaces. But now the pandemic has forced us to rely on our technology more than before – Sundance will not be possible without it last year, after all – the term seems practical. This is more than just a keyword: Frilot said he was interested in exploring the technology that most presents humanity, or the human team, when the media theory of Douglas Rushkoff put it.
Last year, I found a sundance online platform last year to be an interesting way to explore the festival and interact with fans. The essence of this experience is the spaceship mentioned above, which allows participants on computers and VR headsets to branch out together. On a laptop or desktop, it resembles a version that is stripped of the second life. You take a walk as a simple avatar, and if you choose, you can also flip your webcam, which fills your avatar head with live video bait. Because the Sundance platform is built on webxr, the way to provide virtual reality through the web, you can enter the same space in VR by slipping on any headset and visiting the Sundance website.
