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Things to Do in VR: Halloween, Studio 54, and A Place to Meditate

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We skipped our September Things To Do column, since we were so busy being acquired by CINN Global and becoming a bigger company!

But now we are back, just in time for Halloween, and it’s a good thing, because VR is the best place to celebrate the ghouls’ night out. We understand that the New York Times published a nasty article about the Metaverse, but we didn’t read it. There are ways in which IRL just cannot compete with the virtual world, it’s worth exploring, and we don’t care what the Paper of Record or Matthew McConaughey say.

Parties of the Week:

Halloween Fright Night

Monday, October 31, 2022 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM (EST), AltspaceVR, free.

This is in fact the fifth annual fright night — did you know that there even was a VR community five years ago? We had a great time at this haunted house/haunted world event in 2021, and this year looks to be even better. The event organizers promise a haunted mansion as well dozens of other haunted worlds, built by contributors across the VR world building community, staffed by numerous volunteers.

Motörhead in Concert at the Castle

Tuesday, October 25, 2022 from 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM (EST), AltspaceVR, free

There are concerts in this Daisy Shaw venue nearly every week, projected on a giant screen, mostly classic rock.

“There is a lot to see and do in the world,” Daisy writes, in addition to the concerts, “including a walk through beautiful crystal caves, a secret cave where a dragon hides, and a zip wire ride!”

And the following week, a Halloween surprise.

Studio 54: Barcelona!

Saturday, October 22, 2022 from 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM (EST), AltspaceVR, free

This is the official launch of Barcelona’s version of the legendary Studio 54 disco — or, rather, an incredible simulation thereof. An incredible simulation of an incredible simulation, you might say. World-builder Jake Upfront, whom we have featured many times in these pages, has a good record when it comes to recreating incredible simulations.

Jake tells us, “The same DJ that played in the original club throughout its life will be DJing live, as well as others that also did.”

So this is as close as you will get without a time machine. (Altspace Code: WQC398)

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Worlds of the Week

Jose Ferrer is a medical professional who has created a sort of expanded VR multi-universe, a truly incredible playground to explore, in which one world leads to another, which leads to another. Fly to the heavens and perch on the shoulder of a monumental Buddha, or relax in a soothing sonic bath, or descend to a cavern under the earth. His worlds are dedicated to meditation and spiritual equilibrium, but they are no less fun for their good intentions.

In recognition of his accomplishments and also his goals (plus a bit of laziness on our part, to be honest), we’re turning the rest of the column over to Jose to give us a guided tour through just a small fraction of his realm.

I’ve got into VR as an escape to my everyday work stress [Jose writes]. After making good friends, joining educational groups and learning how to create virtual experiences, it changed from being a hobby to being my main career focus. I hope to contribute to the positive side of this virtual reality, where people are kind to each other, helping them find a better version of themselves.

I believe that´s the way to change the real world.

Especially in the medical world, I see the current digital transformation as an opportunity to regain the humanity in the healthcare system.

Reflections JFW Hub

Welcome to the Jose Ferrer Worlds hub, a space for meetings and to showcase some of my favorite worlds. Enjoy some Champagne watching video clips or go on a world
tour using the portals around the trees.

You can also go for a swim around the islands and watch the reflection of the universe in the translucent water. (Altspace Code: ZYC913.)

Meditation Center 2022

This world is dedicated to meditation and well-being! It is a bilingual space, so some parts are in English and some in Spanish. We have different themes inside the spheres. In some of them you will have to push a button to start the audio clip.

To begin with, you will be taking a ride in our space shuttle and arriving at the central terrace where you´ll find indications to each of the spaces, like the Chakras circuit. Try the Chakras circuit for balancing yourself, you´ll go through a series of spheres, each one dedicated to a different chakra with its color and mantra.

In the hydrotherapy sphere, you can enjoy the cleansing power of water in this big bath.

In the grounding sphere, you’ll relax to calming music in a simple garden.

Now enjoy the ride and wait for our arrival, when the door will open for you. (Altspace Code: PSV565.)

MUSE | Sound Healing Temple

Welcome to the virtual home for the Temple of the Divine MUSE — a sanctuary of Light to help you regain balance and align with your higher path and purpose.

This sound healing temple is for gatherings, classes, events and sharing our QSET music soundscapes (Quantum Sonic Empowerment Transmissions) in the Metaverse. It is also a place for you to come when you need to go within and connect with your inner guidance and stillness.

Many other worlds and experiences will be added on to this, with access back and forth via the teleport network. Step in and explore! (Altspace Code: BHE535.)

Flowing River

Enjoy a boat night ride until you reach the pier and then explore this magical island. You might fall asleep before you arrive though!

(Altspace Code: KML057)

Cleopatra´s Party Boat

Enjoy this sensual music while trying to find her private quarters and intimate pool! Music composed by Nickolas Samuels. (Altspace Code: KKR759)

Oriental Trip – A Journey into Your Inner Buddha

I was inspired by a music video on YouTube of this song, which streams in this world.

The visitor has to follow the path to the central round space where they´ll find the teleport buttons to go into 3 different areas – the Buddha head, the Buddha flower and the hidden hammam. (Altspace Code: DJN974)

Sacred Lilith Room

Lilith is cited as having been “banished” from the Garden of Eden for not complying with and obeying Adam. She is mentioned in Biblical Hebrew in the Book of Isaiah, and in Late Antiquity in Mandaean mythology and Jewish mythology sources from 500 CE onward.

All the artwork on the walls were created by the AI MidJourney with descriptions of goddesses and Lilith. (Altspace Code: LXO814)

^^^

If you have an event or a world that you would like to feature, or you know someone we should be talking to, please please please contact us at submissions@chickadeeprince.com!

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 shows a young avatar meditating in a Jose Ferrer world. Design by Steven S. Drachman.

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What to Watch, Where to Live and What to Do (in VR)!

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I was out of town last week for a few days, hiking the Appalachian Trail, sleeping outside in 34-degree weather, roughing it. Sometimes, when I came to an especially breathtaking bit of scenery, frightening rapids that I had to cross or an especially daunting rocky incline to to scurry up, I would muse: Imagine how cool all this would be in VR. (That is, if I’m not already living in a simulation.)

I know that may sound sad, but VR is getting better all the time, and what’s wrong with wanting to hike through Daisy’s Shaw’s “Solitude” world?

Mostly I didn’t miss my headset while I was out in the wild, but being reunited with my favorite gadget was nice.

Here’s what’s happening in VR this week.

— Steven S. Drachman

Where to Live

Multiverse: Infiniverse

Always Open, in the Multiverse App, free to visit, costs some crypto to move in

There has been a certain amount of speculation about a future in which people will actually live and work in VR.

Virtual offices will allow us to interact, face to face, in person (so to speak) with our work colleagues regardless of where our organic bodies dwell. You can already spend time in a spacious VR house and watch TV in your home theater, with your spouse (or their avatar) by your side. Before too long, technology will make VR indistinguishable from actual-reality (only much better!), with perfect-fidelity avatars and devices that can replicate smell and touch (and sex), and machines in which your body will stand, sit and lie, creating the illusion that you are walking and otherwise existing in a real physical space within your virtual world.

Where will you choose to reside? There is a company of developers working on a prototype. In the Infiniverse section of the Multiverse app, you can pick the neighborhood in which you wish to live (you can even create your own neighborhood), buy and sell apartments in the various high-rises, invite your friends over to your apartment and even open a business in the district of your choice.

A cityscape in the Infiniverse

Eugene Arencibia, who founded the Mental Health District in the Infiniverse, and its store, Healthy Mental Me, raves about the growing Infiniverse community.

“At first I found that it was cool,” says Arencibia, “being able to freely roam about the city, then to be able to purchase an apartment. Along the way I met some real good people, they were all very helpful, kind and great to talk to that soon they became friends. Building the Mental Health District we really made an impact where people can come and share their stories, and those people became friends. The community has grown, we had a couple of events that really went well and a great turnout.”

The centerpiece of the Multiverse community is the Planetarium, a terrific science museum that we’ve written about before, but there is also a recreation of Rome’s Coliseum, a business park, maze games and local art museums.

An exhibit on mythical beasts, in an Infiniverse art museum

There was recently a well-publicized comedy club performance, periodic dance clubs and even an arts festival, with an awards ceremony to be held this Sunday at 1 pm E.T. There are also frequent “Grand Openings” for new businesses. You can peruse event listings here.

While some early subscribers have complained about a lack of consistent nightlife and other entertainment, the pace of activity is picking up, and fans praise both the neighborliness of the community and the potential for future growth. A cool experiment worth watching, and visiting.

Party of the Week

Hide and Seek in the Fantasy Village

Saturday, April 30, 2022 from 9:00 PM to 10:00 PM (EST), AltspaceVR, free

The “Hide and Seek” events sponsored by VR Forward have become some of the more popular events in Altspace, and it’s not hard to see why. VR Forward (run by a team of ten, including Oswin, Arabella, MoiraRose, Brenton, Honey Jinsang, MoonHunter, Nicole, TrippyHippie, AngelHeart and Jano Vocalman) chooses dynamic, generally prefabricated worlds that are perfect for your favorite childhood game, and sets you loose.

Hide and Seek in a Science Fiction World

They’ve located prior Hide and Seek events in a science fiction city and an expansive amusement park (where the rides really worked), and this Saturday’s Fantasy Village game promises a great evening of childlike fun.

Fantasy Village
Hide and Seek in an Amusement Park

The founding VR Forward members all met at AltspaceVR events.

“After months of running into each other in the same hang out spots, dance clubs, beautiful virtual beaches,” MoiraRose says, and musing to each other, “‘oh I wish someone would do xyz,’ we realized that between us we had some pretty capable skills. So for just over a year now we have been VR Forward.”

VR Forward also sponsors Crime Time, a true crime talk show, King of Comedy, a comedy game show show, Let’s Play it By Ear, a “name that tune”-style game show, among other regular events. They’ve organized full concerts, a Carnival of Curiosities, Yule Ball and St. Patrick’s Day bash. What really made their name was a prom that they sponsored in 2021, which garnered almost 1200 joins, and which recreated your high school prom down to the most specific detail, such as streamers, French art from the Louvre, palm trees, disco balls, a photo booth, and line dances, as well as a vote for Prom King and Queen.

And they’re doing it again in 2022! This year’s prom promises an undersea theme.

We can’t wait.

What to Watch!

Lustration:  Part 1 (Gallus) and Part 2 (Pine)

VR Animation Viewer, free

To see how to get VR dramatizations wrong, wander over to It: Float; while the 360-degree 3D effects are great in this Stephen King inspired short VR film, all you can do is look around. If you walk forward, the scene bends and moves.

By contrast, the best VR effects are immersive. You are there, and you can literally walk into the movie. How you watch is up to you.

The technical state-of-the-art for this kind of thing remains Gianpaolo Gonzalez’s NightMara, a Looney-Toon of a horror comic, which allows the VR viewer to wander through cartoon landscapes at their own whim.

The serialized fantasy drama, Lustration, has effects come close to those of NightMara, and the mood and story are immensely suspenseful and satisfying.

Lustration, written and directed by Ryan Griffen, from his graphic novel, is a realistically drawn animation, in a noirish style that reflects the source material’s art by James Brouwer. It tells the story of the “In-Between,” a world between life and death; two agents of the hereafter, Bardolph and Gallus, who face a reckoning; two cops investigating the murder of a conspiracy theorist; and the elusive ways that their worlds are set to collide.

Bardolph and Gallus

You can sit and watch the story unfold from the comfort of your armchair, like good old-fashioned TV; you can wander around the VR “set,” if your physical space is big enough; you can toggle between several different camera angles within the app; or, most intriguingly, you can even flip a switch to watch the same scene unfold in the world of the living or from the viewpoint of the ghosts.

Officer Pine encounters a ghost

An eerie, immersive and chilling experience, which rewards repeated viewings.

Episode 3 coming soon!

^^^

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.

Top image shows an Infiniverse neighborhood.

fripSide

What to do in VR: Special Edition

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[UPDATED JANUARY 7, 11:23 am] We’ve run two of these columns so far, directing worldwide readers to an eclectic selection of events in virtual reality. They’re hard to keep up with, and many are announced at the last minute. We guarantee you that some interesting events will hit the web on Friday.

This special edition highlights one interesting and unusual VR concert, a regular weekday party that you might enjoy, and a relaxing excursion in a fantastic, peaceful world of nature.

Concert of the Week

fripSide Concert

Vark, January 8, 7 pm, admission charge applies

The Vark platform presents live concerts performed by avatars in a virtual concert hall, in an audience that includes enthusiastic robots, which ensures that the concert hall is always full.

Unlike many VR apps, Vark charges admission to its concerts (which angers VR-goers used to free content); Vark’s concerts have considerably more expressive avatars and more elaborate production values than most VR performances, which may include sudden world changes that highlight possibilities of VR unavailable in real life (or “IRL”). You can see a promo video here, which will give you a good sense of the elaborate weirdness of the endeavor.

In addition, everyone is guaranteed good seats and an unobstructed view, no matter how large the crowds, and Vark claims that their audiences are promising, with more than 10,000 people attending Vark concerts in a recent ten-day period. In all of these respects, Vark may represent one significant element of VR’s future.

Vark generally books “vrTubers,” who, in some cases, are completely artificial individuals, with avatar bodies and faces and also voices synthetically created by “otaku’s” through an app called “Vocaloid.” These musical performers, known only through their virtual, avatar selves, have no IRL identity, but have garnered fans and audiences without being “real.” For an especially cheerful but unnerving experience, see this video of a vrTuber interview from a recent Cinderella Switch concert at Vark.

fripSide, who are not vrTubers, will nevertheless perform as avatars rather than their IRL selves, in keeping with Vark’s vibe.

fripSide’s VR concert gives worldwide audiences an opportunity to see a performance of a popular veteran Japanese musical duo in a highly unusual format. fripSide, who perform trance music and have had a series of top ten hits on the Japanese charts, has consisted of Yoshino Nanjo and Satoshi Yaginuma since 2009.

With Yoshino Nanjō’s announcement that she is retiring from fripSide after a farewell tour early this year, this may be the last and only chance for U.S. and European audiences to see them perform in concert.

Party of the Week

Pagodascope 19 – Meta Mystery Nano Sci-fi Party

January 12th [and a new Pagodascope party every other Wednesday] 3:30-5:30 pm EST, AltspaceVR, free

“Dr. Abstract” (spoiler alert: Not His Real Name) is a cheerful, enthusiastic fellow with a friendly avatar, the kind of person who gives VR a really good name.

For some time, Dr. Abstract has hosted this psychedelic event in a Pee Wee’s Playhouse world, which he describes as “a dance party inside a Kaleidoscope that is shaped like a Pagoda.” The event includes “videos [that] are custom-curated sets with a mix of eclectic synth, new wave, punk, psychedelia, brit pop, many with custom visuals. Surrounding the PagodaScope is NFT op art and gadgets to play with.” This one has a science fiction theme, and your avatar can fly.

The party has a nice, friendly vibe with a crowd of regulars, but we guarantee you that if you are a newbie who shows up announced, you can seek out Dr. Abstract, and he will introduce you around. A fun world with a friendly bunch of “people.”

Excursion of the Week

Solitude

AltspaceVR, always open, free

Worldbuilder Daisy Shaw reminds us that virtual reality is more than clubs and raves and parties.

“It’s the worlds people spend their lives in,” she tells us, “after the events are over.”

For example, Daisy built a world called “Solitude,” which is a world of mountains, trees, lakes and an abandoned castle.

“I have had people tell me they go there to unwind after a stressful day at work,” she says. “They walk through the forest, go and stand with the wolves, or take a kayak around the lake.”

Indeed, Solitude is a relaxing break; you can hike through the mountains, explore the nearby castle, wade through the water or chase fireflies.

The world is immersive, the nature sounds like nature.

If you are stuck in your apartment, you can put on your headset, and you can really walk great distances through the “Solitude” world, and feel as though you are there. If you have a friend on another continent, or a friend who is quarantined with Omicron, the two of you can have a picnic or go on a hike, and you will feel as though you are really together.

“C.S.Lewis once said,” Daisy notes, “after reading everything in his parent’s library as a boy, that no one had written the books he really wanted to read, so he decided to write them himself. That is the reason behind the worlds I have created.”

^^^

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.