18.06.2018 | A look into the future
90 VR goggles, three locations and lots of fibre optic cables: last Tuesday, VR CONNECT was the first tri-national virtual reality conference, where participants were able to immerse themselves in virtual worlds in Malmö, Aarhus and Hamburg at the same time.
One speaker gave a presentation in each of the three cities, which could be seen and heard via live video stream at the other two locations. During the presentations, visitors had to keep reaching for their VR glasses to try out the new possibilities for themselves. In Aarhus, VR expert Cedric Gamelin from the Emblematic Group spoke about virtual reality as an empathy amplifier and illustrated his thesis with a VR experience about a young man who had been in solitary confinement for several years and went back to his former cell with the viewer. In Malmö, Jaana Nykänen from Divine Robot explained how VR is used as a tool in everyday business life and demonstrated this with examples from agriculture, hunting and medicine.
Frenchman Mathieu Pradat from La Prairie Productions took on the role of speaker in Hamburg. For him, the conference was an important step towards giving the art form of virtual reality a European perspective: "With VR Connect, we have shown how much is currently happening in Europe in the field of virtual reality. This is where we need to start and work even more closely together at a European level. VR is increasingly becoming a social experience, not least because the equipment is becoming smaller and more convenient. We in Europe need not shy away from comparison with China and the USA." Maria Köpf, CEO of Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, was also enthusiastic about the conference: "The hype surrounding virtual reality is and remains huge. The examples at the simultaneous three-country conference illustrated just what is possible. We are looking forward to seeing how the development of VR - especially in fictional storytelling - progresses and will continue to follow it."
VR Connect was organised by Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, the Malmö-based community platform Media Evolution and the Danish partners VIA University College and Filmby Aarhus. The conference was organised as part of the Interreg North Sea Region project Create Converge.
