bratwurst meets the world Archives

March 2 2022

What to Do in VR: Special Edition!

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This week in VR, so much is going on, and even Matthew McConaughey can’t slow down the progress.

It is not clear where this will end. Will AI robots inhabit VR and make us all better people? Will we buy property in VR and live there (with our robots)? Will the millionaires and billionaires scoop up all the land in VR and squeeze out the rest of us? Are we already living in VR all the time (and are we AI ourselves) and we just don’t know it? Is God a robot supercomputer?

So many questions, and so few answers.

What we can tell you is that VR is still fun, for now. We’re still in a bit of pleasant shock over last weekend’s spectacular MOMA Rave #27: Crusöe event, which we reported on in our most recent column, a dance rave on an island atoll.

*The lights of the **Crusöe** party, as seen from a distant island….*

And here’s what’s going on this coming week in a world kind of like reality, but maybe a bit better.

Some of this is slightly NSFW, in a PG-13 kind of way.

This Week’s Party

Bratwurst Meets The World – A Brat-Westworld Party

Thursday, March 3, from 3:30 PM to 6:30 PM (EST), AltspaceVR, free

We wrote about this biweekly party a couple of months ago; as with many VR events, the organizers constantly and frenetically change the worlds in which they meet. Last time we wrote about this party, it featured an alien-invasion theme; this time, the “Bratwurst” organizers have promised a Wild West party (but one filled with cheerful Germans, and not too many violent American gunslingers, although everyone is welcome).

While the Bratwurst scenery changes event-to-event, the stunning and witty nature of the visuals stays the same, and, most importantly, so does the friendly crowd.

This week’s world resembles one of those frontier town amusement parks that American kids visited in the summertime back in the 1950s through the 1970s, nostalgic and unreconstructed.

Organizers Mel Mel, Klaus, Menno and Simsimer have designed a saloon, sheriff’s building, a hangman’s noose, a church, plenty of horses wandering around, all painted in bright and cartoonish colors, just the way you remember it.

And you can pick out a horse to ride around town!

An elaborate and spectacular space to accommodate the party’s growing legions of fans.

Mel Mel promises that there will be no killer robots, but plenty of surprises. Please drop by and introduce yourself.

This Week’s Dance Raves

LA MADRIGUERA CLUB: Carnival Edition

Thursday, March 10, 2022 from 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM (EST), AltspaceVR, free

Organizer Sergio Martin Murcia promises a “merry carnival celebration” at a colorful roof rave, featuring Halloween bats, confetti and techno music, and, for the revelers, hats, animal masks and unicorn antennas.

The photos of the club are beautiful, as you can see, and word on past La Madriguera events has been highly positive. So go!

+18 VIOLET Grand Jeu “PlayroomSX”

Saturday, March 5, 2022, from 6:00 PM to 12:00 AM (EST), AltspaceVR, free

How real will VR get? How real can it get, when most VR avatars don’t have lower bodies yet?

VIOLET and its producer VenusSX, an intimacy coordinator, seek to answer that question.

VIOLET was rolled out last month in AltspaceVR, and it is indeed a beautiful space, a vast, dark and stylish nightclub, featuring a well-designed dance floor with an interactive sci-fi disco lamp and suspended dance cages, and multiple other themed rooms, including a VIP zone, chill zone and … Elysium, a cavernous universe of a room, with an ocean, a garden of giant flowers and miles of dark space.

This weekend’s club features live DJs and experimental audio interactivity features never seen before.

*The strip-pole, at the VIOLET nightclub*

“VIOLET is not like any other VR dance club,” Venus says. “Imagine a premium adult club in Paris or Berlin, pumping tunes, performances and exclusive themed rooms. It is not just a dance party, it is an experience and a place to connect with other open-minded people within the ambience of decadence…. We enter into the age of digital relationships, and VenusSX Events provides the new erotic playground.”

Wow!

This Week’s Concerts

Katelyn Christine Live Holographic Performance

Thursday, March 3, 2022 from 9:00 PM to 10:00 PM (EST), at the Failed to Render bar in AltSpaceVR, free

Singer/songwriter Katelyn Christine is a bit of a VR trailblazer, who has been performing her acoustic, folk-tinged country originals and cover tunes at the virtual reality “Failed to Render” nightclub for some time, and at Thursday’s concert she will appear as a “Live Holographic Performance,” not an avatar. The Failed to Render club is a cheerfully rundown dive, and you can be sure that Katelyn Christine’s regular audience will be there, a crowd of fans who will follow her anywhere. A wonderful, friendly vibe, and great music.

Otoboke Beaver

March 9, 6 pm to 6:43 pm, Venues, free

This punk band from Japan (named after a “Love Hotel” in Osaka”) has performed together since 2011; their performance at Venues is a 2D event, live-streamed on one of Venues’ gigantic “Supersphere” screens. If you have never been to Venues before, it is worth the trip; the crowds are among the friendliest in VR, and the showcase is beautifully designed.

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Best Hang-Out Spot of the Week

Brooklyn Rooftop

Always open; AltSpaceVR, free

This world is, quite simply, spectacular. If you are looking for a stunning locale to meet a friend for a relaxed drink, or to throw your own shindig for a large crowd, consider The Brooklyn Rooftop. There is a bar, a hot tub, a basketball court, a bonfire, a fireworks show (which you run yourself, shooting rockets into the starry city night sky), and, appropriate for a high rise on the water in Brooklyn … oh that view of Manhattan!

Coming up!

In future columns: More reviews of VR TV animation, and a return visit to a growing Multiverse, filled with neighborhoods in which people actually … live?

^^^

Chickadee Prince Books publishes books about AI and VR, such as Mark Laporta’s science fiction epics.

Audere Magazine regularly publishes articles about technology and VR. Read more here.

Cover image of VR events designed by Kalyee Srithnam. Amelissa Oblige models the Oculus headset.

January 20 2022

Things to Do in VR (End of January Edition)

Chickadee Prince Entertainment, Technology #actnowvr, #climateaction, #dreamlandxr, #sustainabillity, #un, #unesco, bratwurst meets the world, mel mel, MOMA dance rave, what to do in VR

What the chattering classes have chosen to call the “Metaverse” continues to grow in popularity and public awareness, which is all to the good.

Because VR is a great and exciting place to spend your time.

There are indeed real concerns about its future — most importantly, how will the world’s billionaires seek to profit off access, and will they find a way to corner VR’s “real estate” market. Audere has reported on this subject before, and we will report more on this soon.

But for now, VR is the best, cheapest entertainment around, and access is available to all.

Going out to a movie in VR, for example, is cheaper than IRL (“in real life”). It’s much cheaper to join a VR health club than an IRL gym, and to see a musical performance at a bar, or dance at a nightclub, is generally free.

There is no risk of catching Covid in the ‘verse.

Indeed, if you have Covid, you can still go out, in VR.

And if you want to open up your own nightclub, just build a world and invite the universe.

You can even throw a party in your mansion, and friends from around the world can pop by without plane fare.

Right now, you don’t need to pay any rent on that beautiful mansion, big enough to accommodate all your friends from all over the world.

All that may soon change, so enjoy this moment.

Dance Rave of the Week

MOMA Rave #25

Saturday, January 22^nd, 5:45 pm EST, AltspaceVR, free

Last month, we wrote about a Tokyo dance club we visited in virtual reality, a really terrific venue in a sleek, high-rise building, with a great view; you could even wander the city streets if you needed a breath of air. This was a “MOMA Rave,” one in a series of events that feature meticulously designed, photo-realistic worlds, great music and enthusiastic crowds.

The MOMA events, incidentally, have no affiliation with the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; “MOMA” is instead a combination of the name of one of founders (Manon) and the VR identity of another founder (Monster).

These events, writes world-builder and organizer Mikael Zacke Zachrisson, “started out on March 26, 2021, … when a previously regular event had a break. This soon grew into the recurring event called MOMA Raves. Thanks to great dance music together with frequent newly built, interesting venues, well-proportioned innovative dancefloors, a realistic feel and a welcoming community, MOMA Raves soon grew into one of the most visited regular European dance events, and with upcoming event number 25 it is closing in on its one-year anniversary.”

The new world for this Saturday’s MOMA dance rave is still under construction as we go to press (so to speak) late Wednesday night. Whether or not this new mystery world is ready in time, or a previously built venue is substituted, the event promises EMD music in a beautiful nightclub, and an immersive, realistic experience.

UN Forum of the Week

ActNow Live VR Experience

Monday, January 24, 2022, from 3:00 AM to 2:59 AM (EST), AltspaceVR, free

This one we know nothing about, but it seems more than worth exploring.

The organizers write:

Between January and August of 2022, as part of the #ActNow Immersive VR Experience, once per month we will unveil a new custom-built virtual environment that digitally replicates an existing place, and we will host a 24-hour moderated live event with storytellers, performers, and artists. Each month participants will learn about different climate threats, SDG actions, and solutions, while celebrating a different UN International Day.

The venue for the first day of events is a VR reconstruction of Al Wasl Plaza, in Dubai.

“Portal into a virtual Dubai,” the organizers write, “to join a live audience of avatars from around the world in celebrating the theme of CONNECTING MINDS, CREATING THE FUTURE.”

While said to be aligned with the UN’s ActNow campaign for individual action on climate change and sustainability, as with many, many VR events, we’ve been unable to find further information about this.

Still, this is a monthly series, which stretches through August, with future events to be held at virtual, immersive re-creations of Shilin Stone Forest in Kunming, China, Tsimanmpetsotse National Park in Nosy Ve Androka, Madagascar, India’s Taj Mahal and New York’s U.N. Headquarters, so we will have time to report on this further in later columns.

We believe that this event is indeed part of a sincere effort to save the planet.

But either way, a virtual-reality Dubai is definitely worth seeing.

Party of the Week

Bratwurst Meets The World – A Bratwurst Invasion Party

Thursday, January 20, 2022, from 3:30 PM to 6:30 PM (EST), free

Like “Pagodascope,” which we highlighted in our last column, Bratwurst Meets the World is a biweekly party, scheduled for a European evening, which we Yankees can enjoy in the afternoon.

Organizer “Mel Mel” tells us that the name is designed to attract Germans to VR, who are otherwise hesitant to mingle in Altspace. Still, she assures us, “This event is meant for everyone from everywhere, to mingle and chill with friends, to talk and have fun, to meet new people.”

While organizers Mel Mel, Klaus, Menno and Simsimer generally rely on Simsimer’s boundless imagination, this week’s “Invasion Party” is based on a template by a worldbuilder called Optic.

The Bratwurst worlds are fantastical and playful, rather than hyper-realistic, and Mel Mel promises great fun and conversation, as well as “hidden surprises to be found.”

Coming up next

The Metaverse presents a great new way of watching movies and TV in an amazing new format, and also recreational activities. In the next column, we’ll give you some of our picks.

^^^