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SPEAKER 1: To design is to simulate.
How can we simulate now and also do what
we believe to be good design?
So we selected an incredible group
of folks who are doing that using the latest
tools of arguably design, which is
virtual reality, augmented reality, and different kinds
of realities.
WINSLOW TURNER PORTER III: My name
is Winslow Turner Porter III.
And the piece that we're showing is "Tree."
VR requires a lot from the user, so we
wanted to think about that from the ground up.
What is the first thing we do?
When they hear about the experience,
you know, how can we begin the storytelling from that point?
That's really important for us to think
about where we can begin before they put the headset on.
And so in "Tree," we give them an actual Amazonian Kapok seed.
That's the rainforest tree in Peru
that they will eventually become.
They can plant it however they want.
They feel like once they put the headset on,
they realize that's them.
They were responsible for this transformation.
But we're more trying to think of how can we
make this sort of a universal human experience
when they're inside the headset?
SPEAKER 2: Insane.
I would do that every day.
GABO ARORA: My name is Gabo Arora
and I'm showing "Clouds Over Sidra," of which I
am creator and producer.
Concept of presence is something one
has to design for because I'm sometimes keeping shots that
maybe don't have as much to do with the story arc,
but they give you a sense of being there.
And I think that has a lot of value.
And so in that way, I think there
is a new element of design that comes
into the experience that's very important that wasn't there
before.
ANSHUMAN KUMAR: My name is Anshuman Kumar.
I'm a design lead at Google and I work on the Daydream team.
What I brought to this event was an app experience
where we are trying to kind of bring the power of AR and VR
to connect with people and help people connect with each other
and to education.
I feel VR is also solving a lot of creative problems.
If you look at "Tilt Brush," it's
a completely new medium of self-expression
and like, you know, creativity.
So it's kind of pushing the boundaries in that direction.
JESS ENGEL: My name is Jess Engel
and I'm the director of original content at Within.
Anybody who is creating VR is designing.
In VR, you have to design an environment
and you have to think about not just
like what it looks like visually,
but how you're going to relate to other things
within the space as well.
It's almost like an architect.
PETER FLAHERTY: My name is Peter Flaherty
and the piece I'm showing is "The Surrogate."
I have been thinking about design
from a number of different perspectives for a long time
and have been called a designer in some contexts.
With "The Surrogate," for example,
the development of the story and the form
of how we're integrating the live-action video
moments with the explorable game engine components that
make it sort of this interesting explorable narrative
definitely was something that I had to design.
It was something that was a design problem
to think about how you could get those two things in the same VR
experience and in an effective and emotionally-meaningful way.
DANIEL PERLIN: My name is Daniel Perlin.
I'm an experience designer and I'm based out of New York City.
Design has always been a very encompassing discipline.
So embrace that, I would say, and go for this because I think
it's an incredible opportunity right
now with a lot of interest and there's no right way to do it.
You're not going to find anybody yet
who's telling you, oh, no, you can't do that.
It can work on the plane of feelings,
on the plane of immersion, and truly getting people
to begin to alter their behaviors based
upon those feelings.
And some of it just says, I really
want you to just have a few minutes to take a pause
and really feel stuff that you might know about,
to really feel stuff that you're cognizant of, but not
absolutely feeling.
And so that's where I think that the power of VR for good
can really do its most effective work.
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