Next 12 months’s Sundance Film Festival will mark a momentous return to Park City, Utah, after in-person festivities were cancelled last year. But Sundance is not giving up on the digital platforms it used to stream movies and convey cinephiles right into a VR social hub final January. As a part of its New Frontier exhibition, Sundance plans to broaden The Spaceship, its digital venue the place attendees can chat collectively and discover VR and blended actuality artwork installations.

In an effort to attach Sundance’s in-person attendees with its world on-line viewers, the Festival will even launch a “Biodigital Bridge” in Park City. Shari Frilot, Sundance’s Senior Programmer and Chief Curator of New Frontier, describes it as a human-scale display screen the place bodily and digital attendees will have the ability to work together with one another. Developed along with the immersive studio Active Theory, the bridge will provide fundamental chat assist, nevertheless it’s largely a means for Sundance-goers to see how different attendees benefit from the occasion.

Sundance Film Festival

Frilot says New Frontier has been pushing the idea of biodigital experiences for several years now, largely by means of an exploration of how expertise can intersect with our lives. Think of the best way that an app like Uber, and even Google Maps, has reshaped the best way we navigate bodily areas. But now that the pandemic has pressured us to depend on our tech greater than ever — Sundance would not have been potential with out it final 12 months, in spite of everything — the time period appears virtually prescient. It’s greater than only a buzzword: Frilot says she’s concerned about exploring the expertise that finest serves humanity, or Team Human, as media theorist Douglas Rushkoff put it.

Last 12 months, I discovered Sundance’s on-line platform final 12 months to be a captivating technique to discover the competition and work together with followers. The core of the expertise is the aforementioned Spaceship, which permits attendees on computer systems and VR headsets to mull about collectively. On a laptop computer or desktop, it resembles a stripped down model of Second Life. You stroll round as simplistic avatars, and in case you select, you may also flip in your webcam, which fills your avatar’s head with a reside video feed. Since Sundance’s platform is constructed on WebXR, a technique to ship digital actuality over the net, you possibly can enter that very same area in VR by slipping on any headset and visiting Sundance’s web site.

Compared to SXSW’s VR platform, which seemed stunning however largely felt like a digital wasteland, it was clear that Sundance obtained one thing proper final 12 months. After isolating for many of 2020, with the ability to see a lot of my cinephile buddies in VR made final 12 months’s Sundance really feel particular. So for subsequent 12 months, Frilot says, the competition goes even additional. The Spaceship will probably be upgraded with a brand new Cinema House, the place attendees on computer systems and VR headsets can view occasions livestreamed from Park City, in addition to room-scale discussions.

On the bottom, Sundance will even have a brand new area referred to as The Craft, which is able to let in-person attendees go to New Frontier displays, artist discussions and panels. There will even be VR headsets to make use of, although the competition can be encouraging individuals to convey their very own gear if they have it. Sundance hasn’t finalized its listing of New Frontier displays but, however Frilot tells me many artists are optimizing for the Oculus Quest 2, so fest-goers can expertise their work with out being related to a PC. But there’ll probably nonetheless be items that demand a severe VR rig. Sundance’s famed Egyptian theater will even host some New Frontier performances, which is able to happen each on the bottom and nearly on the Spaceship.