200 episodes

Since May 2014, Kent Bye has published over 1000 Voices of VR podcast interviews featuring the pioneering artists, storytellers, and technologists driving the resurgence of virtual & augmented reality. He's an oral historian, experiential journalist, & aspiring philosopher, helping to define the patterns of immersive storytelling, experiential design, ethical frameworks, & the ultimate potential of XR.

Voices of VR Kent Bye

    • Arts
    • 4.8 • 170 Ratings

Since May 2014, Kent Bye has published over 1000 Voices of VR podcast interviews featuring the pioneering artists, storytellers, and technologists driving the resurgence of virtual & augmented reality. He's an oral historian, experiential journalist, & aspiring philosopher, helping to define the patterns of immersive storytelling, experiential design, ethical frameworks, & the ultimate potential of XR.

    #1361: Agog Immersive Media Institute Launches to Help Social Good Orgs Leverage XR

    #1361: Agog Immersive Media Institute Launches to Help Social Good Orgs Leverage XR

    The Agog Immersive Media Institute officially launched today by Grist-founder Chip Giller and philanthropist / investor Wendy Schmit. They describe Agog as "a groundbreaking initiative at the intersection of technology, communications, and social impact. Agog, a philanthropic organization, will help creators and nonprofit leaders harness the power of extended reality (XR) technologies to spur positive social transformation, opening new avenues for empathy, understanding, and activism."







    I had a chance to get a bit more context on Agog from co-founder Giller as well as advisor / consultant Amy Seidenwurm, who ran Meta's VR for Good initiative for six years. We talk about their five main areas of focus that include social justice and equity, high-impact storytelling/world-building, research, education and outreach, and advocacy and policy. They've been operating in stealth for a number of months already having been involved in a number of projects, and I'm really quite excited to see how they can help fill in some of the gaps that are needed within the growing XR ecosystem as more and more non-profits and social change organizations start to wrap their minds around how to integrate immersive media within their missions.







    Be sure to check out the Agog.org website for more information, and check it out in the Quest browser to see the first WebXR and AR iterations for what they intend to develop into a fully-spatial brand. It's not launching with full iOS or visionOS support yet, and I am able to see the AR components on Android, but it isn't as fully interactive on Quest yet. Still early days for WebXR, but keep an eye on how they continue to develop their website with more immersive features.























    This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.







    Music: Fatality

    • 53 min
    1360: Sneak Peak of SXSW XR Experience Projects, Events, & Lounges with Programmer Blake Kammerdiener

    1360: Sneak Peak of SXSW XR Experience Projects, Events, & Lounges with Programmer Blake Kammerdiener

    I had a chance to speak with Blake Kammerdiener, the lead programmer of the SXSW XR Experience selection to get a sneak peak of the 36 projects that are being featured this year (14 projects in the XR Experience Competition, 18 projects in the XR Experience Spotlight, and 4 XR Experience Special Events). The XR Experience Exhibition will be running from Sunday March 10 to Tuesday March 12 from 11a to 6p CDT. New this year to the Exhibition Floor will be sponsor booths on the main exhibition on Floor 3 of the Fairmont (Arizona State University MIX Center, Meta, Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA)'s Taiwan Pavilion, and Xn Québec), as well as XR lounges in conference rooms including the Canadian Innovation Lounge, and L'Effet Québec on Fairmont's 3rd floor. There are also some XR Experience projects on the 4th and 5th Floors as well, and the XR Track also runs from March 10-12, and will be split between the Hilton Hotel and the 5th floor of the Fairmont. Here's an unofficial spreadsheet listing some XR parties and XR events happening during SXSW as well, and be sure to check out events at the Canada House & Ireland House.







    I will unfortunately not be in Austin, TX to attend SXSW physically this year due to a family medical issue, but I will be covering 1/2 to 2/3 of the SXSW XR Experience projects remotely. Here is a list of upcoming interviews as well as some previously covered projects at SXSW including 6 from Venice Immersive, 1 from Tribeca Immersive, and 1 from IDFA DocLab.









    PART I of SXSW Coverage







    The Tent







    Her Name Was Gisberta







    The Vortex Cinema







    We Speak Their Names in Hushed Tones







    [Electric South's Ingrid Kopp from Tribeca 2019]







    Escape to Shanghai







    Walk to Westerbork







    Dreaming of Lebanon







    Madame Pirate: Code of Conduct







    [Pirate Queen from Singer Studios ]







    PART II of SXSW Coverage







    Detachment







    Joseph Rouleau: Final Encore







    Last We Left Off







    Tadpole







    Impulse (Preview)







    [Floreal Producer Katayoun Dibamehr from Tribeca 2023]







    Reimagined Volume III: Young Thang







    [Soul Paint creators previous project of Deep from 2021]







    Soul Paint







    The Golden Key







    Potentially 1 or 2 more projects







    PREVIOUSLY COVERED PROJECTS







    #1244 Maya: The Birth of a Superhero [PART 1 from Tribeca Immersive 2023 - Part 1 + Part 2 debuts at SXSW]







    #1272: Songs for a Passerby [from Venice Immersive 2023]







    #1276: Emperor [from Venice Immersive 2023]







    #1287: Letters From Drancy [from Venice Immersive 2023]







    #1292: Shadowtime [from Venice Immersive 2023]







    #1293: Tulpamancer [from Venice Immersive 2023]







    #1303: The Imaginary Friend [from Venice Immersive 2023]







    #1331: Buried in the Rock [from DocLab 2023]

























    This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.







    Music: Fatality

    • 44 min
    #1359: Landmark Anthropological Field Study of VR with “In the Land of the Unreal” author Lisa Messeri

    #1359: Landmark Anthropological Field Study of VR with “In the Land of the Unreal” author Lisa Messeri

    Yale Anthropologist Lisa Messeri spent a year doing field work in Los Angeles in 2018 studying the political ecology of the VR community, and will be releasing her landmark book called In the Land of the Unreal: Virtual and Other Realities in Los Angeles on Friday, March 8th. It's the best book about the culture of VR that I've read so far as it is pulling in many insights from Science and Technology Studies (STS), anthropology, social sciences, sci fi, pop culture, and philosophy.







    Making claims about reality is daunting for any working scholar in the 21st Century, and Messeri uses the feeling of "unreality" as a analytical tool to analyze not only virtual reality, but also the fracturing nature of our political context, but also the unreality of Los Angeles as the factory of dreams and façade-like architecture that blurs the boundary for what's deeply real vs what's surface scaffolding enough to transport you into another reality.







    Messeri uses the framing of fantasy to interrogate a number of claims being made by the VR community circa 2018. Fantasy by her definition could include both positive aspirational dreams, but they could also turn out to be deluded illusions. I personally prefer the using the phrase of potential since it is a bit more neutral for me, and includes both the promising positive potentials as well as the more perilous negative potentials. But she splits her book into three parts the Fantasy of Location exploring the unreality of Los Angeles as well as how VR transports you into another world per Mel Slaters place illusion. The second part is the Fantasy of Being deconstructs the VR as the ultimate empathy machine per Chris Milk's infamous 2015 TED Talk. Then the third part explores the Fantasy of Representation with the aspirations of the LA VR community to create a more diverse and equitable ecosystem that transcends the bias and power dynamics of Silicon Valley. In each one of these three sections, Messeri uses case studies and follows specific individuals over time to see whether or not some of these aspirations and potentials end up becoming grounded into physical reality, or whether they end up collapsing into a more deluded illusion.







    I was inspired to dig into my backlog of 800+ unpublished Voices of VR podcast episodes to publish some interviews that I conducted between 2017-2019 featuring some of the main characters and protagonists featured in Messeri's book:









    Marci Jastrow is featured in Chapter 3 letting Messeri become a scholar-in-residence at Technicolor Experience Center







    Carrie Shaw of Embodied Labs is featured in Chapter 5, and radically opens up her business to Messeri to study







    Jackie Morie is featured in Chapter 6 as Messeri deconstructs some of the gender essentialist claims that VR is a medium that's a natural fit for women.







    And Joanna Popper is featured in Chapter 7 as Messeri breaks down the unique pathways into emerging technology that she was noting as an interesting trend from an anthropological perspective.









    I had a chance to read through an advanced copy of In the Land of the Unreal: Virtual and Other Realities in Los Angeles, and it's already started to make a huge impact on the way that I think about the many dimensions of unreality in our present day realities ranging from the surreal experiences of VR presence to the fractured reality bubbles of our political discourse to the ways in which techno-utopian solutionism can impact the philosophies that are driving how technologies like AI are developed aspiring towards speculations of Artificial General Intelligence or Artificial Superintelligence.







    I even started applying Messeri's unreality analytic to make sense of some of what Alvin Wang Graylin was saying in our discus...

    • 1 hr 43 min
    #1358: Reflecting on Location-Based Entertainment VR in 2018 with Joanna Popper

    #1358: Reflecting on Location-Based Entertainment VR in 2018 with Joanna Popper

    Flashback to 2018 with Joanna Popper talking about the state of Location-Based VR. Popper is featured in the 7th chapter of Yale anthropologist Lisa Messeri's In the Land of the Unreal: Virtual and Other Realities in Los Angeles field study conducted in 2018.























    This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.







    Music: Fatality

    • 33 min
    #1357: Jacki Morie’s Scent Collar and History of VR from VRLA 2017

    #1357: Jacki Morie’s Scent Collar and History of VR from VRLA 2017

    Flashback to VRLA 2017 with Jacki Morie talking about her patented Scent Collar and VR history. Morie is featured in the 6th chapter of Yale anthropologist Lisa Messeri's In the Land of the Unreal: Virtual and Other Realities in Los Angeles field study conducted in 2018.























    This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.







    Music: Fatality

    • 33 min
    #1356: Origin Story for Embodied Labs with Carrie Shaw from VRLA 2018

    #1356: Origin Story for Embodied Labs with Carrie Shaw from VRLA 2018

    Flashback to VRLA 2018 with Carrie Shaw talking about the founding story of Embodied Labs, which provides VR training to care givers. Shaw is featured in the 5th chapter of Yale anthropologist Lisa Messeri's In the Land of the Unreal: Virtual and Other Realities in Los Angeles field study conducted in 2018.

























    This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.z







    Music: Fatality

    • 25 min

Customer Reviews

4.8 out of 5
170 Ratings

170 Ratings

CIXLIV ,

Kent is truly important

Kent and his historical recording of the VR space is incredibly valuable to the capturing of the ebbs and flows of our industry. An invaluable chronicle for the future of technology.

Kcrosley ,

Clown Show

Host is a clown. Show is right-wing propaganda disguised as tech discussion. Weirdest f-ing pod I’ve ever heard, but not in a good way. Typical show:

Interview with weirdo who wouldn’t even have been covered in Mondo 2000.

Host: What about Schopenhauer’s “Theory of The Bland”?

Guest: ummm whut?

Host: Well I talked with Guest about [verbatim restatement of what guest said] and they said [verbatim restatement of what guest said].

Host: Awkward monologue about Schopenhauer’s “Theory of the Bland” and the intersection of fascism and magic mushrooms.

AECcommunications.com ,

WTH, this is everything but VR

I have not been able to finish one show, it’s painful! I wanted to listen to cutting edge VR. But I have to listen to the geopolitical ramifications that take up 75% of the show. No thanks!

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