The Venice International Film Festival’s VR program “Venice VR Expanded 2020” has come to Istanbul
For the first time in its 125 year history, La Biennale di Venezia is sharing its official selection online and across 15 satellite venues around the world that make up its satellite program. One of the programme’s selected members is Koç University’s KARMA Lab, a mixed reality research and education center. With international facilitation and technical and content coordination provided by longtime Yabangee contributor and XR researcher Michael Barngrover, KARMA Lab is exhibiting thirty-eight selected works of virtual reality art created by teams from more than twenty countries. Soho House Istanbul is the location partner and is joined by Istanbul Planlama Ajansı, Raptor Dance Studios, Virgile Film, Hub21, X Topia, MuseVR, KUTTAM, and Bugece as event sponsors. The event runs through 12 September, with tickets currently on sale through Bugece.
Of course, the reason that the satellite programme exists is because of the ongoing global health crisis, which has forced many large festivals around the world to cancel, virtualize, or hybridize their activities. For each member of the satellite program, the safety of guests and staff is the greatest concern, and KARMA Lab is fortunate to benefit from the support and expertise of colleagues from the Koç University Research Center for Translational Medicine (KUTTAM). It is with the support of their physicians and students that KARMA Lab has created an extensive sanitization protocol that makes it possible to provide access to VR equipment safely. All visitors wear mouth and eye masks and one-time-use earphones. After each session, the VR equipment is removed, wiped down with disinfectant and placed in a UV sterilizer before it is made available again to another guest.
The virtual reality section of the Venice Film Festival began in 2017 and is usually held on the island of Lazzaretto Vecchio, located in the Venetian Lagoon. This year’s edition has been expanded to include physical satellite locations as well as a specially recreated virtual Venice inside of VRChat, a free social VR platform. There, directors, producers, accredited members of the festival, and VR enthusiasts will network and party despite being located all across the globe.
The full VR selection of the festival can be seen on the official site of La Biennale di Venezia and through the KARMA Lab site. All ticket sales are made through the Bugec.co.
