Pod Insights Modern Wisdom The Future Of Virtual Reality | Dr Sarah Jones | Modern Wisdom Podcast 110 About this episode Dr Sarah Jones is an immersive storyteller using AR, VR and 360.
For the last 50 years or so, storytelling hasn't massively changed its form, but with the advent of increasingly portable devices, the platforms we use are all changing.
How will Virtual Reality enable us to tell stories in a new way? Should we be worried about the control that these technologies could have over us? Are sci-fi predictions about holographic humans realistic?
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Transcript 11,006 words · 4 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:05 Chris Williamson? I am joined by Dr Sarah Jones and before the podcast, we've been nerding out on all of the different gadgets and stuff that we've got floating around our house. So that is going to be the continuation of today's episode. Sarah, welcome to the show.
0:19 Speaker 01 Thank you very much for having me.
0:20 Chris Williamson? It's a pleasure to have you on. You have the world's first PhD in immersive storytelling.
0:29 Speaker 01 Correct.
0:30 Chris Williamson? What's that? What, what, what does that mean?
0:34 Speaker 01 I'm sure I won't be the, I won't be the only one for very long. I'm sure there'll be lots more coming up right behind me with regard to immersive storytelling. And I usually say it's immersive story living as a way to kind of define it a little bit more. But basically, what I do is grab any tech that I can and break it to find a new way of having a story.
1:05 Speaker 01 So story living is all around that kind of immersive experience where it's completely rooted in the experience, in the experiential. So therefore you can't really have a told story. It's not really a directed narrative. So you've got to break it apart and then you live it in whatever way you want. Therefore it's story living. So yeah, I did my PhD, I got my PhD in story living, the first one. But yeah, it's pretty good.
1:36 Chris Williamson? That's fun. So what are some of the examples of the kind of technologies that you work with?
1:43 Speaker 01 And I've always experimented with whatever I could get my hands on really. So my background was in television journalism. So I was a reporter for like 10 years, travelled all the way around the world telling stories. And I always wanted to just get closer to those stories. I wanted to find a way of really taking the audience and putting them in the heart of it. So I was right at the start of the mobile phone movement of mobile phone filmmaking and shooting and editing everything on your phones. And I found that that could get you closer. Um. But it still wasn't close enough because whenever you're watching anything, there's this barrier and that barriers the screen and it's always in the way.
2:27 Speaker 01 Um. And then when I did my first kind of V R experience, I was like, this is it. Now I can take you, the audience, and I can plug you in the centre of the story and you're there and you experience it then yourself. Um. So from all kinds of things, from normal film to um A R to V R to three sixty film, which is obviously the easiest way to experiment. Um. But at the moment, I'm I'm really fascinated with holograms and what you can do with those. Um. And I haven't made anything decent. Um. But I will. Um. So it's just a case of experimenting and breaking and trying to find how these technologies suit different mediums.
3:12 Chris Williamson? That's interesting. So uh is your, are you coming at this from a tech coding side or are you coming at this from more of a grand perspective, what can it do? Um. What's its sort of capabilities side?
3:27 Speaker 01 I think the latter, um and certainly more of that kind of artistic side. Um. I tried to learn how to code probably about five, six years ago. I thought, okay, I really need to do this. Clearly, I'm missing that skill. So I started learning and then I thought, you know what, there's people that are brilliant at this. I don't need to kill myself trying to do it. I just need to find those people and work with them.
3:57 Chris Williamson? Especially if it's not in your wheelhouse, like there's
3:59 Speaker 01 No, exactly.
4:01 Chris Williamson? Yeah, some guys who who eat that stuff for breakfast, but would find would find the storytelling that you do like just crawling through glass. So you might as well.
4:11 Speaker 01 Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I I I have a basic knowledge. I I can understand it. I know what I need to do. Um. But I I think what's really interesting about working in kind of technology for the kind of artistic side, the narrative side, the experience side, um is there has to be a collaboration. And that collaboration means you need that specific group of people to make magic. And not one of those people can do it by themselves. You need everybody there. Um. And that's what's really exciting, really, because I feed off everybody else's mind. You know, I need to be stimulated by all those minds to make something great. Um. So it's quite, quite good in that respect.
4:54 Speaker 01 Um. But yeah, certainly that kind of artistic side, looking at what can we really do with it? Um. I think a lot of the problems, um, and I've been quite critical of some people for, for doing it. It's that you get a new platform or new technology and you just apply old ways of thinking to it.
5:12 Chris Williamson? What like?
5:12 Speaker 01 That's really, and I, I think, well, there, there was a prime example, um, and I always name and shame them as an example of Sky. Um. Yeah. So, so Sky News, um, did their first VR experience. And it was the reporter on the migrant crisis, doing a story on the beach. And they'd obviously filmed it for a live report first off, um, as a flat, flat version for, for traditional television. Um. And then they, um, filmed it with a three sixty camera. So they filmed it for VR, three sixty, capturing everything. You can look around, tilt and rotate on your phone, whatever it might be. They did exactly the same thing. They didn't think about
5:56 Speaker 01 what can we do differently because we have a spherical camera? How can we tell this story differently? What does it mean from the audience's perspective? Of watching a story flat, having the narrative told to you, or actually being there on the beach? How does that change what you do? And I was really critical of them for doing that. And then the next day they announced that they had a new Sky, um, VR studio. Um. So my timing wasn't great, um, but I, I, I hold true to that belief that it's just really lazy. And, you know, my background is in journalism and it always reminds me of when online journalism started.
6:34 Speaker 01 And it was just simply, you know, you get your story and you copy and you paste and you put it online and then you upload the video. And you don't think it's a different audience and they're consuming it in a different way. So they need it to be different. Um. So, so I think that's really where a lot of the mistakes are. So what I try and do is start from that blank. Canvas and think what can I do that I can only do because of this technology. Um. So it's not really technology for technology's sake. It's more thinking. We we owe it to the tech to make it great and to break it and find new ways of using it.
7:16 Chris Williamson? So how would you how would you characterize the difference between the use of something for traditional flat screens and that for VR?
7:24 Speaker 01 And.
7:25 Chris Williamson? If you were if you were designing it, if you were the the lady that was at Sky that day on that beach, what what how does it look different? What do you do?
7:34 Speaker 01 It it's about the experience. So whenever I'm planning a shoot on anything, um it's it's always the first port of call. Whereas in flat, you would kind of do a storyboard. You think if you start your middle and your end. When you're doing something for VR um or three sixty, it's closing your eyes and thinking, what is it? What's that experience? So you're trying to get somebody to experience. What is it about being in that specific place that you need to capture? And then how can you capture it? Um. So I did something a couple of years ago in Hong Kong, um in Chungking Mansions, uh which is this crazy, crazy, huge. International kind of market scene. Um. It's the most insane place in the world.
8:18 Speaker 01 Um. Totally chaotic. Um. Four thousand people staying there in all these really. Cheap hostels, like the cheapest place that you can stay. Um. And going in there, you know, it's dark, it's dingy. Um. There's so many different smells and noises and everything is going on going on. So for me, being in that environment, I was like, I need to capture that. And capturing an experience and a feeling is really difficult to do. It's not like just telling the story like. You know, oh, the smells are so intense and these people are doing this, you know, you can't do that. You've got to put someone in the heart of it. So so to do that, I broke all of the
9:03 Speaker 01 kind of very early um introductory editing conventions in V R um. I had a lot of moving shots because I wanted people to feel disjointed um and uneasy. I had various kind of carrying shots. You're at different levels. I had lots of quick edits and to make people feel jarred um. And that was how you could capture the experience. So it's all coming down to that, really, instead of what is the story that I'm trying to tell? It's what is the experience I'm trying to create? And that it's a real shift in the mindset. It's really hard to try and think in that way. Um, it can be easier in some ways, but a lot harder in others.
9:46 Chris Williamson? I suppose, thinking about it, the when you are trying to capture something for flat screen, your position in terms of camera is framing the scene as is best appropriate. Whereas for V R, it's literally the point of view. It's what is the optimal point of view? Is that is that the distinction between the two?
10:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, absolutely. And there is no frame. You know, the the frame has gone.
10:12 Chris Williamson? Hmm.
10:12 Speaker 01 Um, you you always have like this this frame in front of you on on a flat screen. And then suddenly, that's gone. Um, I can make something and have ten different people watch it in ten completely different ways, taking different narratives from it. Um. It doesn't always have to be that way, and a lot of people do try and direct the narrative and use cues um like lights and sounds and and force the gaze to different places. Um, but I tend to argue against that and think, no, I want people to just experience it. And we all experience things in different ways. Um, so let's forget about that
10:56 Speaker 01 and put the trust in the audience to just let them create their own experience. Um. It might be me being lazy, but.
11:04 Chris Williamson? Well, it's not as if it's not as if you can't watch it again as well. So I I got a I got an Oculus Rift, actually, I have an ex-missus. I got an Oculus Rift. I've sold it now. Uh, but. I got an Oculus Rift off an ex-missus. And one of the things that I found myself doing was watching the same sequence multiple times, because you can only see however much is in your field of vision. And I will, actually, I'll go back and I'll have a look, I'll see what happens if I look that way for it.
11:33 Speaker 01 Yeah.
11:34 Chris Williamson? Whereas, once you've watched a flat screen, that's it, right? There's no, there's no more nuance, really. There's a lot less nuance, at least.
11:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, you can go back. And I mean, I remember watching Breaking Bad and then watching it so many times, having read all the different color cues and all those kinds of things. But that's very, very different. Certainly in VR, you, you can have different people watch it in totally different ways. And that's really exciting. It's really hard if you're trying to direct something and you want the controls. So for control freaks, it's awful. But it is really interesting just letting go and thinking, yeah, people will experience it however they want, so let's let them.
12:25 Speaker 01 So, so, yeah, I mean, what's really interesting, you mentioned that the Rift, the new Oculus Quest is a game changer.
12:32 Chris Williamson? What's that one? What's that?
12:34 Speaker 01 So the Oculus Quest came out, oh, I think maybe about two months ago, which is one of the first real standalone VR headsets. So you obviously have the gear.
12:45 Chris Williamson? I had a Go, I had a Go, sorry, I had an Oculus Go, that was it.
12:47 Speaker 01 Oh, okay. So the Quest is the next step up from the Go. So the Quest, you've got two controllers. And you've got a, a space around you. You can play Beat Saber, which is one of the greatest games in VR ever.
13:04 Chris Williamson? What's Beat Saber?
13:05 Speaker 01 Beat Saber is like. Remember the nineties or maybe the noughties, um, the dance challenge mats in arcades where you used to have to jump and, and you know, your right foot and your left foot and dance around. Um, it's like that, but in VR, but you're hitting these things. So, so to watch other people doing it, it's a little bit weird. Um, but you watch them and you're just like banging to, to different music as beats. Um, and it's awesome. It's an incredible exercise. Um, but it's really, really cool. Um, so, so highly recommend anybody playing Beat Saber. Um, and that's probably one of the things that's driving sales of Oculus Quest, because everyone wants to play Beat Saber.
13:47 Chris Williamson? Really?
13:48 Speaker 01 And now you don't need a huge laptop, um, or PC to run it. It just runs. Um, so I think with that, um, and then Vive have their own one coming out as well, where again, you don't need to be tethered to a machine. Um, that's all massive. You know, this is huge, really. It might actually allow the tech to be more accessible, um, which is good.
14:12 Chris Williamson? Yeah.
14:13 Speaker 01 Like, that has to be a good thing.
14:14 Chris Williamson? Yeah, I think one of the things that I noticed, um, because I've seen floating around for a while, PlayStation VR, um, and when Oculus first came out, where I think it was like you needed an Android phone or something to link it up to and other bits. And I was just thinking that it, it just feels quite clunky and it's not really that cool. And then even the Oculus Go, I mean, like I said, I didn't pay for it, but even the Oculus Go that I had last year, um, I, I thought was, was cool and I enjoyed watching things. But what I was conscious of, and I, I did a little bit of reading, um, can you explain to the listeners what happens to the resolution of, of video when
14:54 Chris Williamson? you then start to wrap it in, into the, the headset? Because I instantly noticed some of the videos I was watching look lower quality, but apparently that was more to do with the, the way that it needs to communicate it to your eyes. Is that right?
15:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, it it can be. So um different um headsets and it'll all be whether you downloaded them or whether you're streaming them and however you're doing it. Um I always um get questions around, you know, I I wanna make something in three sixty, I want a three sixty camera, which one shall I buy? Um and there there's one camera that I use all the time um as a basic entry level kind of prosumer camera, um which is the Insta three sixty one X. Um Insta three sixty make a great range of cameras, um really, really great company. Um and there's, it now says the one X is five point seven K. So you think brilliant, this is really good, like this is gonna be great in a headset.
15:53 Speaker 01 But those five point seven K pixels of being, you know, if you're watching something flat, it's in front of you in that resolution. We now have to put all of those resolution, that those pixels all the way around us. So it's the three hundred and sixty degree image that's made up of all of those pixels. So it's never gonna be as good as watching uh uh ultra HD television, flat, massive screen, all that kind of thing. It's just not. Um but it is getting better. Um.
16:27 Chris Williamson? I was gonna say, where's the tech at now? Where what's it progressing to? Because I think I think the stats, when I had a go, were that if you downloaded something, weren't streaming it, uh had it on optimal resolution, all this sort of stuff, it could get to about seven twenty P. Is that right?
16:42 Speaker 01 Um no, I think you can go up to ten eighty on on on the Quest. And it isn't bad. Like, it's it's good.
16:52 Chris Williamson? You just got so spoiled with four K and Samsung's super hard, super dark, sharp display and all this stuff.
16:59 Speaker 01 Yeah. I mean, I would say that after after a couple of minutes in it, you get used to it. Your eyes adjust to it. Um and then it all becomes normal. Um so I I lived in VR for forty eight hours a couple of years ago. Um one one of those, you know, crazy things you decide on a day out that you're gonna do.
17:22 Chris Williamson? How'd you go in the bathroom?
17:24 Speaker 01 I had a five minute comfort break every hour.
17:26 Chris Williamson? Okay, cool.
17:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
17:29 Chris Williamson? Right, what about.
17:30 Speaker 01 One of those.
17:31 Chris Williamson? Eating with with.
17:32 Speaker 01 Yeah, eating in a headset, drinking in a headset, sleeping in a headset, working in a headset. Um.
17:39 Chris Williamson? Oh my.
17:39 Speaker 01 Racing car driving in a headset in real life, but with like the look through camera through through the headset. Um, all those kinds of things. Um, I I did it with a a a colleague, a V R colleague of mine. Um, Dean Johnson, we we did it together. Um, he got a tattoo. Um, wearing a headset to monitor the difference in heart rate based on your, um. Whether it could be a pain reducer.
18:09 Chris Williamson? Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
18:10 Speaker 01 Wearing a headset, which it did, his heart rate went down dramatically when he was wearing the headset. Um, so all those kinds of things. Um, really, really interesting. Um, but when I was doing that, I I generally don't like cartoony things in V R. I I like photogrammetry. I like realism. I I like to feel like it's real. Um, but we were doing a boxing thing with this real cartoonish dude. Um, he looked like one of the characters from The Incredibles. Um, and I was like, oh, you know, I I don't believe it's real at all. Um, but after a couple of minutes boxing him, it really felt real.
18:50 Speaker 01 Um, and there were some things there around the haptics, like there was a a vibration as you were punching him. Um, the screen would go black as if like when you got knocked, as if you were like, you know, a little bit starry eyed and losing your vision slightly. Um, so there were loads of things like that that really tricked your mind. Um, and you kind of get used to it. So, yeah, the resolution's not all that great, but it's getting there. Getting better.
19:17 Chris Williamson? Yeah, I mean.
19:17 Speaker 01 I have faith.
19:18 Chris Williamson? It's a hell of a lot. I I don't get me wrong. It's a hell of a lot more immersive than than watching something on a T V that's at the end of your bed. Or or in the mounted on the wall in the living room. It's definitely a very different sort of experience. So. What do you think at the moment, if you were to put your money where your mouth was and someone, let's say someone has a VR headset at home. And they want to see the coolest thing or the most impressive thing or just your favourite thing right now. Where would you direct them? What should they watch and what is it and why?
19:53 Speaker 01 This is really difficult because the last couple of years I've been really bored.
20:01 Speaker 01 As a huge advocate for the technology.
20:08 Speaker 01 I have been really bored.
20:10 Chris Williamson? Why?
20:10 Speaker 01 Because I felt like. There's been a lot of pressure on people to make stuff, obviously for commercial reasons. And to find an audience and to do all that kind of stuff. And it doesn't allow people the time to be creative and break things a little bit and understand the different things that you can do. And you need that time, you know, it's a new tech, well, it's not new technology, it's been around since nineteen sixty five was the first headset. So it's been around forever.
20:48 Speaker 01 But you need time to really find the good stuff.
20:55 Speaker 01 And that's quite hard to find. So, I mean, there are great, like Beat Saber is a great game. Really, really good.
21:06 Speaker 01 If you'd like to have social VR, you know, you can go into Netflix in a headset. And watch something as if you're in the cinema and that might be to some people's tastes. I don't understand it personally because I would just watch Netflix on my TV, but you know, it can happen. So there's things like that. I like VR. Less so for being at home.
21:34 Speaker 01 But in a social experience and an event. So I'm a big fan of that full kind of immersive experience. Um, there's something on in London at the moment. Um, that's an immersive experience of War of the Worlds.
21:50 Chris Williamson? Oh, wow.
21:51 Speaker 01 Um, and it's a two, three hour experience. Um. It's an event as if you're going to the theatre. There are actors there that sweep you around along and take you into different places. Um, you go through one area and then suddenly people are throwing a rucksack on your back, a sub pack and strapping a headset to you.
22:12 Chris Williamson? Oh, my god.
22:12 Speaker 01 And then you're off somewhere else. So.
22:14 Chris Williamson? Are the tickets still available for this?
22:16 Speaker 01 Yeah, they've just released new dates and it's on until January. So it's definitely worth checking out.
22:20 Chris Williamson? That is it.
22:21 Speaker 01 Um, yeah.
22:23 Chris Williamson? I'm gonna put, I'm gonna put it in now. I'm gonna put in War of the Worlds.
22:25 Speaker 01 It's dot to dot, um, the, the creators, um, and it's a proper experience. It, it's as if you're going to the theatre.
22:34 Chris Williamson? Have they got anything to do with the Star Wars one that was on?
22:37 Speaker 01 No.
22:38 Chris Williamson? Do you remember that one?
22:38 Speaker 01 That, that was The Void. Yeah, that was The Void. So, so The Void did Ghostbusters as well. Um, The Void are a huge company. They're being bought by Disney now. Um.
22:49 Chris Williamson? Of course they have.
22:50 Speaker 01 Obviously, um, but they do those big immersive experiences. And for me, that's where the technology really comes alive because you've got it as a group. Um, but you can add so much to the experience by having it in a headset. So, you know, you, you jump into a, a frame of a boat in real life, but then you've put on a headset and then you would be in the boat. So. So you've got all these different things going on and there's various light projections and holograms and that kind of stuff as well. Um, and you have an interval when you're in this bar and all the tables changing colour and lighting up and everything else. Um, and then you carry on with the experience. And that kind of thing is great.
23:35 Chris Williamson? Yeah, that's.
23:35 Speaker 01 Because you are sharing it. Um. Even me, and as nerdy as I am, I don't sit at home in the evening and go, you know what, I'm gonna stick on my headset for a bit and, you know, jump into another world.
23:46 Chris Williamson? Watch a bit of Loose Women from today or whatever.
23:48 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly. It's like, I might just watch the TV. Yeah, there, there's something.
23:56 Speaker 01 That I I don't.
23:59 Speaker 01 It's it's a lot of effort. Um. And also, if you think about how awful a lot of people are now, we watch TV at the same time as we might be working on our laptop in the evening, at the same time that we might be um Instagramming something else or checking someone else's social, and we're doing multiple things at the time at one time. In a headset, you can't do that. You're stuck. So you've got to be really in something.
24:27 Chris Williamson? I'm gonna be watching something good.
24:28 Speaker 01 All that attention. Yeah.
24:30 Chris Williamson? You can't be watching something boring.
24:31 Speaker 01 No, but I mean, there are some, there's a great experience at um Versace and I see all of these are experiences that you go to. Um Charlotte Mickelberg did a a great um Flight of the Future experience where you're in this um this kind of um sphere kind of light up thing. Um and you were leaning against something and you had to flap your wings to become a bird and learn to how to fly. So you started to fly and then it took you on the whole journey of flights. So from the first flight um up until future flight, it was all sponsored by British Airways. Um and that was really interesting again. So you had these different experiences. You added in different scents.
25:16 Speaker 01 You added in heat, there was wind. Um so you had this full kind of um immersion on lots of different levels. Um and that was really cool. So there are really good things being done. But sitting at home saying, oh, I must watch this or I must watch that. Um it's still quite limited.
25:37 Chris Williamson? Yeah, I found I found like, I think last year I was watching sport li- on Facebook Live. And the headset and I there was a part of me that thought there's novelty to this, but there was another part of me that was thinking. I don't think this is that cool or fun. It's just a bit novel. Yeah. Should I be thinking it's cooler because everyone else thinks VR is like the future? Yeah. You're right. It's repurposing existing content in an existing format and just putting it in a worse resolution but close at your eyes. Yeah. That's what that's what that is. And then, yeah, in the flip side of that, the Star Trek, Star Wars Void thing that I desperately tried to get to the co-hosts, Johnny and Yusef, to go to. Yeah.
26:21 Chris Williamson? I'm going to force them to go to this War of the Worlds thing. Yeah. I'm going to hold them accountable and we'll talk about it on a future podcast. That, you know, that sounds really, really cool. Yeah. We were at a Fresh's event earlier on this week and they had one of the stalls there. I don't even know. I don't think it would have been anything tremendously sophisticated, but this brand just had a VR headset. Yeah. And I come over and you can race a car or do whatever it is. So I think there's still so much novelty and so few people have been exposed to the technology that you can just put off the shelf, probably headset, pop it on someone and be like, look, like this is, this is how crazy and quirky we are as a company. Yeah.
27:04 Chris Williamson? So, yeah, I guess there's a lot of low hanging fruit for people to do that. One of the things that I noticed, again with the Oculus Go, was the file size of these videos is insane, like especially for the long ones. There's a Jurassic Park one. Did you see that one? Yeah. And that's, that was awesome. That was my favorite one. I thought that was really cool. It's huge, isn't it? The file size is terrifying. It's only three, three or four minutes long, but this file size is insane. And even with that, you can only move, you don't move, you are moved on a, on a track through this particular film. So you can imagine that you're walking through a jungle and stuff
27:49 Chris Williamson? happens and you can pan around with your headset, but you can't control the motion. If you were to start to create worlds that were rendered to that sort of resolution, plus were being created as you go, I'm going to guess that's, that's technology that's not quite ready yet. Is that right?
28:09 Speaker 01 Well, no, I mean, it is if you're tethered to a computer. So if you've got um the the Rift or the Vive. Um and certainly to to some degree, you've got that on the Quest as well, which is really good. Um. So you are starting to open up those kind of multiple worlds, um not infinite, obviously, um but different ways that you can move around and explore different areas. So that's really happening now, um which is great, um because that's what's needed. Um. It's really difficult in in things where if I work with film and I work with three sixty, then you can't really do it with that. It it's not really that. Um. There's ways to add interactivity,
28:52 Speaker 01 but not freedom really of of space. You need to be using kind of photogrammetry, um where you're taking like millions and millions of images um of one thing and splicing it all together, um squishing it all together um to to create a a a digital um image. Um. So you can start doing that, um but it is moving really quickly.
29:17 Speaker 01 Obviously, starting back in nineteen sixty five, but now it's moving really quickly.
29:22 Chris Williamson? Um. It's picking up, picking up pace.
29:25 Speaker 01 It it's picking up pace.
29:26 Chris Williamson? It's weird with this stuff though, right? Because we we're seeing in front of our eyes how um multiple areas of technology need to be able to come together to enable something. So with this, let's say that um X number of years ago, we would have had the lens capability to have been able to show what was going on. But because of the the file sizes, you actually need the storage and then potentially, if you want to have something which is standalone, you need a battery. The battery on the Oculus Go was terrible. Like, there was periods where I couldn't get the Oculus Go to charge because it didn't have enough battery to start up and it would like buzz its whole uh charge down just trying to start up on charge. That was weird.
30:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:02 Chris Williamson? Um.
30:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:03 Chris Williamson? I sort of know anyway, so um. Um, yeah, and looking at these file sizes, we need better storage. We need to be able to make sure that that's that that's able to happen and and stuff like that. So yeah, it's weird how all of these, you were talking earlier on about how everyone needs to play a role.
30:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, now with like five G and all that kind of stuff, that's going to make things really like that will help that that will make things better. Um, and it is getting easier. Um, I mean, I I remember when when I first started filming things. Um, having to try and stitch it all together manually. So so I would film on, oh, sorry, I've just dropped you there. Um, I'd film on rigs of loads of GoPros. And then I would have to put it through um software to stitch each of those images together to create one spherical image.
31:00 Chris Williamson? Oh, my God.
31:01 Speaker 01 Um, and now it's mostly done that. There's lots of programs. You can put things through and it does it all for you. Um, I still try and manually stitch because it took me so long to learn how to do it flawlessly. Um, but the the algorithms are great, you know, it just happens. Um, but those are those kinds of things that through a group working within this space, it's getting easier. Um, I did a I worked with Google on um a couple of different experiences and they gave me one of their their Google um Odyssey cameras, this jump. I was one of their jump creators.
31:41 Speaker 01 And it was basically a sixteen GoPro rig. It was huge. It was massive. Um, the the power bank that ran off was like this massive kind of.
31:52 Chris Williamson? You got this big backpack on, yeah.
31:54 Speaker 01 Um, yeah, well, it you couldn't even carry it. I couldn't carry it. Um, you know, it was not mobile filmmaking whatsoever. Um, but but it was great. Um, and with all of that, you they they developed their software that you just plugged it all in. And it went up to the cloud and they stitched it and then they told you when it was ready. Um. The file size is meant that it took bits anywhere between five and seven days to stitch.
32:22 Chris Williamson? Oh, my God. Wow.
32:25 Speaker 01 And you're just like, this is how big it was. I've had things like rendering for about sixteen hours at a time. Um. But it is getting so much better.
32:35 Chris Williamson? Yeah, I understand. We believe you, honestly. Doctor, Doctor Jones, we believe you that it's getting better. I know it is.
32:42 Speaker 01 Honestly.
32:42 Chris Williamson? So is there ever, is there ever going to be a time where we're going to see blockbuster films filmed in full VR? Or do you think that the inherent difficulty in all of the the um added elements that you need to be able to control is just going to make that a no-no?
33:02 Speaker 01 No, I think they will. Um. I think there's one feature-length VR film that's come out. Um. That one of the longest films kind of that I've seen, I think, is a good length. Um. Was around eighteen minutes. That was um a piece um called Control, C T R L. Um. Which was one of the most powerful pieces that I've seen. Um. It was a good few years ago. Um. And it was all, it was around the gaming community, um esports. Um. But there was lot lots of darkness around. I don't want to say too much in case anyone manages to see it.
33:40 Speaker 01 Um. Because it's really, really powerful. Um. So so that's the kind of maximum length that you get for a lot of experiences. That kind of eighteen minutes max, most around eight to ten for for kind of the normal experience. Um. But but I I think there will. Um. But it might not be film as we know it. So it might not be sitting down and watching something for, you know, a hundred and twenty minutes. Um. It might involve more movement or activity. Um. So that's quite different then.
34:20 Speaker 01 Um. So, yes, but not as we know it. Um. And I don't think we would go to the cinema and then on the seat in front of us, there would be a headset that we would then put on.
34:30 Chris Williamson? I understand.
34:31 Speaker 01 Um. But but I could see that happening more in kind of theatre companies, that there's part of, and a lot of theatre companies have experimented with that, that there's part of a production that might be augmented, or there might be a different layer of technology used. Um. And that's really exciting. For me, the biggest uses will be V R within those kinds of immersive experiences, theatre, art galleries, shared experiences. Um. And then more use will be with augmented reality, um, because it's easy, it's on our phones. You know, we can engage with different things on our phones. Um.
35:11 Speaker 01 We will eventually have holograms in our eyes. We can project whatever we want on the wall. Um. We could be watching the same television, but watching two different programmes just through whatever our our lenses were were programmed to do. Um. But that's what I think will happen.
35:28 Chris Williamson? Yeah.
35:28 Speaker 01 Like, I think that's where we will go, and that's much more likely to happen than people sticking headsets on because it's too intrusive.
35:37 Chris Williamson? Yeah.
35:38 Speaker 01 Um. And they're still heavy and it ruins your hair and it leaves marks around your face.
35:43 Chris Williamson? Does look like you've been punched. Yeah, looks like you've been punched a lot.
35:46 Speaker 01 Imagine what it'll look like after forty eight hours.
35:48 Chris Williamson? Oh, my god. Yeah. We did. You have to peel it off. You had to like.
35:52 Speaker 01 No, they were like, breathe it.
35:53 Chris Williamson? Pull it off.
35:54 Speaker 01 We we were swapping with lots of different headsets. We were using the Gear V R headsets in the day when Samson was still great. Um. In V R, um, we're using the Rift, we're using the Vive, we're using the Playstation that had just come out. So. So, yeah, we had lots of different headsets.
36:09 Chris Williamson? Um. So you meant you mentioned at the very start, you mentioned holograms, like, for me, a hologram is the security seal on the back of my driving licence. And that thing that brought Michael Jackson back to life that one time. And I think they brought, I think they brought Tupac back as well.
36:26 Speaker 01 Yeah, well, Tupac back. Yeah. Um. Well, there's talk at the moment, there was meant to be an Amy Winehouse hologram tour and, you you know, the the technology that's being used. For holograms is really interesting, um, and a little creepy, maybe.
36:45 Chris Williamson? How does it work?
36:46 Speaker 01 Um, so, so it works well in a number of different ways. So they can um use old footage and they can also recreate. Um, and get mannerisms right. Some use um like big green screens and motion capture. Um, others are using loads and loads of digital images um from past footage and putting them all together. Um, and then it's just projections. It it's like a normal hologram that you would do with a a C D case and projecting. Um, lights in and and creating things that you might, you might do if you're nerdy at home. Um, which I'm sure everybody does.
37:22 Chris Williamson? Mm hmm.
37:23 Speaker 01 Um, so, so, yes, so that, that's, you know, I'd say it's really, really simple. It's obviously not. It's hugely technical. Um, and costs a fortune. Um, but I think with um. With the technology from HoloLens, um, obviously Microsoft have been working on, you can really start to think. How might you use holograms as a storytelling technique? Um, interacting um in different ways. And and there was a really interesting. Experience, which I cannot remember the name of it. I can see the poster for it. It's a Sheffield Doc Fest around two years ago. I will let you know because it is really, really interesting.
38:07 Speaker 01 Um, where it was um an immigration officer. And you were, you had to decide whether to let people into the country or not based on their stories. So you were grilling them and it was all on the HoloLens. So more of an augmented reality, you can see through it's a glasses and it's projecting in front of you. So it's not a V R headset.
38:29 Chris Williamson? Okay.
38:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
38:30 Chris Williamson? So, so you're not, you're not watching something, you're seeing the real world. And then is it overlaying? What's the difference between that hologram and A R then?
38:41 Speaker 01 And it's very, very similar technology. So, so yeah, the the hollow lens, well, the hologram is simply the the way that it's projected.
38:49 Chris Williamson? Understood.
38:50 Speaker 01 The light beams coming down on there and projecting on there.
38:53 Chris Williamson? Yeah.
38:53 Speaker 01 Um, where with A R, it's more that digital representation. Um, but they they were using um the hollow lens to to have these characters that you had to interview to decide whether they would get into the country or not. And determine and determine by your language that you were choosing to use. And the decisions you made, the holograms would get more real, they'd they'd get more vibrant. Um, or they would be slowly withering away.
39:23 Chris Williamson? Alright.
39:23 Speaker 01 Um, and I thought that was a really interesting way. It's very early days, it's like two years ago at Sheffield. Um, but it was a really interesting way of how you might use that technology um to interact with things. Um, so I do think with augmented reality and with holograms, you can start start seeing things a little bit differently. Um.
39:48 Chris Williamson? Cause I'm watching.
39:48 Speaker 01 And that might be interesting.
39:50 Chris Williamson? The other day I started watching the new Blade Runner, which has just go gone up on Netflix. And in that, uh, Ryan Gosling, Ryan Gosling?
39:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:58 Chris Williamson? Yeah, Ryan Gosling.
39:59 Speaker 01 He's one of the Ryans.
40:00 Chris Williamson? It's Ryan someone has got, um, it's not Ryan Reynolds. Sorry, it's Ryan Gosling. He's got a a fake girlfriend that's supplied to him by this company. And she's walking through, and we've seen this in films a million times, right? Like, is that, is that going to be possible to be able to have that? To be able to project something three D into the air, which is broadly opaque as well? And is able to move through, um, because obviously the hologram at the moment, I didn't quite know that it was still essentially just that C D case projector type thing.
40:34 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
40:35 Chris Williamson? You can't have this big backdrop moving around or else it's going to start clattering into your tables and chairs when it's supposed to be sitting down.
40:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
40:42 Chris Williamson? Is there anything on the, on the, the horizon that allows us to do anything like that?
40:46 Speaker 01 I'm sure there's lots of people working on that, um, and and certainly when you're you're looking at kind of lenses in your eyes and, you know, different glasses that you might be wearing, um, which is what hollow Microsoft's hollow lens is and Magic Leap and all of those, that's what they're working on. Um, always hugely top secret, um, but, you know, that that kind of technology is allowing that. I mean, simply, if you look at, you know, obviously the real kind of crass, basic version, when you've got Pokemon Go.
41:20 Chris Williamson? Yep.
41:20 Speaker 01 And you're playing with the little li- little things around and they're in the house and they might be might be in your room.
41:28 Chris Williamson? Yeah.
41:28 Speaker 01 Um, you you've got them. Obviously through the lens of your phone, um, but if that's being projected in different ways, um, you you can see. You can see that, but then i- is it any different then to, you know, cyber relationships in the eighties or the nineties and?
41:47 Chris Williamson? It's just a case of, it's just a case of scaling that technology, either up or down, however you want to look at it. So that you've got it always on, potentially in your eyes, potentially always overlaid over the top of things. You are right, I guess.
41:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
41:59 Chris Williamson? I guess the what we're talking about with this hologram, the the um Blade Runner hologram versus Pokemon Go is simply a case of convenience. Is it in your eyes? Is it always on? Do you actually?
42:11 Speaker 01 Yeah.
42:11 Chris Williamson? Have this sense that you're doing something or is it just a part of your day to day life? What um, has Google Glass been discontinued? Did that get stopped?
42:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
42:21 Chris Williamson? What do they do with that? They're just, they're they're just fuck it?
42:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, I I was a glass hole. I I tried glass.
42:27 Chris Williamson? Great word.
42:28 Speaker 01 Um, yeah, I I was one of those. I've got lots of photos of me, you know, with my glass on going.
42:35 Chris Williamson? Working out the weather.
42:37 Speaker 01 Yeah, and I kind of felt really sad for them because I thought the ambition is there.
42:45 Speaker 01 The technology isn't.
42:47 Chris Williamson? Okay, so what what were the stumbling blocks?
42:49 Speaker 01 That's the problem, um.
42:53 Speaker 01 First of all, you look like a glass hole.
42:55 Chris Williamson? Okay.
42:56 Speaker 01 You know. It it it wasn't very comfortable. For for me, I felt like, you know, it's quite a narrow glass and you had to look up constantly to see what was being projected. So if you had like your normal glass, you were looking up here. All the time. Um, and that's really quite uncomfortable. It's a bit. What am I doing? What am I doing? I kind of look really gormless because I'm looking up all the time. Um. But the intention was there. Um, you know, what Snapchat have done with their Snapchat glasses and filming from the glasses all the time, um, and being able to, you know, broadcast whatever it is you're seeing at any time.
43:39 Speaker 01 That was quite similar to what Glass were doing. So if you went into to filming mode with Glass, it would be filming you cycling on your way to work, um, which is just what's what Snapchat's done with their lenses. Um, so there there's quite a few people kind of experimenting with, you know, what is it like? But there is still that huge kind of privacy issue, that concern around, you know, what are you capturing all the time? Um, you know, that's really hard and it's really hard to navigate that. There there aren't.
44:12 Speaker 01 That there aren't enough kind of laws or regulations in place to be able to govern all of that or answer any of those concerns. Um, and that's a massive question.
44:22 Chris Williamson? Isn't it weird that that that people would naturally have a a inclination against that, but probably fifty percent of people got a smart speaker in their home now.
44:32 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly. Well, that's the I mean, glasses, what, two thousand twelve? So. Maybe it would be different. Uh, I'm not sure. Um.
44:43 Chris Williamson? I think it's something.
44:44 Speaker 01 But yeah.
44:44 Chris Williamson? Uh, it's interesting, the fact that it's to do with the visual. So in James Clear's book Atomic Habits, he gives this great fact that he says in the human body, there's about fourteen million cells that are dedicated to sense. And eleven million of them are dedicated to sight. That's how highly we discriminate. Uh, our our sight over other other senses.
45:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:05 Chris Williamson? Um, and there was a, someone will be able to tell me what this is. There was a YouTube video that I watched not long ago. Where it was trying to show people. How uncomfortable they felt when they realised they were under surveillance. And this person went in and sat down straight in front of a couple at a restaurant and just had the camera like that and just didn't say anything. And people started freaking out, started just losing their shit or sit down next to someone who was reading the paper at a park bench and just put the camera in the face. And the the difference is that it was a camera across the street, it's a camera in the corner of the shop, it's camera, whatever, whatever.
45:46 Chris Williamson? Um. But there's something very, very invasive, this uh that's kind of creepy and visceral and just weird. About knowing that someone's watching in a way that knowing that someone's listening isn't. And even in the way that knowing that someone's watching statically isn't as well, I think. Um, I I yeah, there's some big hurdles for that sort of technology to overcome.
46:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. And I think, I mean, we we give ourselves away so freely. Um, online constantly, but there is still that that we're just a little bit uneasy with. Um. And I think that goes back to that problem of, you know, accessibility with VR, that it still is too close, it's intrusive, it's on our head and it's not comfortable. So you have all of that kind of playing out constantly. Um, but yeah, I mean, I I do think the the lighter the technology gets, the easier it gets to use. Um, I used to have like a clip on VR lens that would be clipped onto my phone.
46:50 Speaker 01 So I could watch VR content um through um like a a clip on double lens.
46:59 Chris Williamson? Okay.
46:59 Speaker 01 It's really weird.
47:00 Chris Williamson? So you've been putting your eyes, putting your phone up to your face like that?
47:04 Speaker 01 Yeah, so so you'd have your phone there and the these lenses would adapt on to it to make it into a VR viewer. So it's like I've got my little VR view wherever I am. Um. And obviously with, you know, cardboard headsets and all those kinds of things. It's, yeah, I've got a whole collection, I've got a whole whole collection of headsets through history. Um, but it's really fun. Um, but but yeah, it's it's quite interesting to see that those changes. And as it gets lighter and as they get more comfortable and easier. Um, but still, I'm just not sure if lots of people are gonna stick on a headset.
47:41 Chris Williamson? Hmm. It's not as if iPhone was the first touchscreen phone. It's the first one, it's the first one that was able to deliver the technology sufficiently seamlessly for people to adopt it.
47:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
47:51 Chris Williamson? And it's the same with this. What's the company, what's the company that is going to get first mover advantage? And I, Apple, again, perfect example. They didn't have a phone until they did that. There'd been loads of people who'd been in the phone space. Who had dabbled with touchscreen phone, then BlackBerry had had one that was like touch and keypad and blah, blah, blah. But, you know, so it might, it very well might be, and it could be Apple. Apple could come out with something VR and just totally storm the market. Which, which is, it's funny and it's goo, it's good that capitalism allows the best product to rise to the top. Always makes me feel sad for like goo, poor Google Glass, like two thousand twelve, slaving away, desperately trying to make it work. And then there's Apple fifteen years later coming in with like Apple Eyes or whatever they call it and they'll nail it.
48:37 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I, I do feel sorry for Google Glass and I love the fact that they tried really hard. And it could have been great and the thought, the intention was completely right. And I don't think Apple are going to do much with, with VR. I think that they are really buying into the AR market. And I think whatever they bring out, um, you know, you've got the AR kit on Apple. There's lots of great things like Reality Composer where you can, it's all open source. You can bring in kind of digital objects and, um, download their app to kind of project those objects in your environment. So, you know, there's great examples that, that some teachers are using, um, getting kids engaged with stuff.
49:19 Speaker 01 And looking at kind of roadmaps and, um, kind of the solar system and holding planets in your hand and looking around them. Um, and that kind of technology is brilliant and that's all been done through AR, through AR kit. Um, and things like Reality Composer that kids are using on their iPads and really, really engaging with. Um, so I think that's where Apple will be. Um, and whether they come out with glasses or whatever it might be. Um, there's always lots of rumours and lots of leaks, but you know, we will see.
49:57 Chris Williamson? If it was, if it was Apple, they'd be able to trademark the eye eye. The I I. And I'm from Newcastle, so I'm allowed to say that.
50:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm not sure I. Yeah, I'm not sure I could like I I. That might be a bit wrong.
50:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, it's quite funny though, when it came out with the watch and it was very much, it's not called the I watch, it's the watch.
50:24 Speaker 01 And yeah, so maybe it will just be I.
50:27 Chris Williamson? All right, Tim Cook, stop being really serious. Everything else was I.
50:30 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, exactly.
50:32 Chris Williamson? One of the things that I heard Sam Harris talk about a while ago, and I'm going to butcher it, but you'll be, you'll know what I'm talking about. Sam's concern was as technology allows us to become more immersive, there'd been some very.
50:47 Chris Williamson? There'd been some studies done which showed. AR and VR's ability to change people's political views, their views towards, I think, climate change or tree felling. There was something as well. Do you know what I'm talking about? Or am I just?
51:05 Speaker 01 No, no.
51:06 Chris Williamson? Okay, can you, can you tell the listeners what I'm on about? Because.
51:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, there'd been loads of, of conversations and discussions and lots of things around this. So. We basically say that VR as an immersive media. Has the capacity, the potential to change perceptions, to change understandings. And that's, that's why we like it. So, you know, if you want to experience, yeah, Clouds Over Sidro, an incredible piece done by Chris Milk a few years ago, one of the big kind of. BRR360 kind of experiences, following the journey of a girl in a refugee camp in Jordan.
51:51 Speaker 01 So that was designed to drive empathy. It was meant to invoke that sense of we need to take action. You know, it was designed to be shown to decision makers of the UN to get them to understand more and change their minds and get them to do more. So the technology has been used for all of that. It's been labelled as this empathy machine, which I think is a load of nonsense. But that's what it's been labelled as.
52:27 Speaker 01 If you take that argument that it can change minds,
52:33 Speaker 01 you can put the technology in other people's hands and get them to change minds in different ways. If the technology has that power to change what you're thinking about something, where does it go with subliminal messaging? Where does it go with arguing for something else? There's been really, really interesting studies around gender swapping in VR, getting to people to experience different genders and then seeing how that changes attitudes and behaviour in the workplace. You know, feel what it's like for a woman to be the only woman in a boardroom full of men, those kinds of scenarios.
53:16 Speaker 01 Some of them are really powerful, so some of them have been shown to have impact. There was one around at Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab, where they did something around homelessness. And they had two groups, and one group just received information on flat screens and brochures and that kind of stuff. And the other one experienced it, the other group was experiencing homelessness in immersive experiences and connecting with people. And then they repeated it, and then they they looked at the data over who was who was still more empathetic, who who was actually, who had changed their behaviour. And all of the studies showed that it was the group that were exposed to it in an immersive way,
54:00 Speaker 01 because they had that close relationship. So, so, yeah, you are looking at technology that can potentially change people's minds. If that is for the wrong way, how is that monitored? How is that regulated? We're talking pretty much in quite a unregulated industry.
54:24 Chris Williamson? Yeah.
54:24 Speaker 01 So, yeah, I think that the concept of brain hacking
54:31 Speaker 01 and changing the mind to think, changing the brain and the way that you're thinking and your beliefs and your motivations.
54:39 Speaker 01 Is really interesting, but a little bit freaky.
54:42 Chris Williamson? Yeah, well, I mean, the only thing that I the analogy that I can kind of draw here is that with social media, it we had no idea that it was going to come. Social media was a change. The fact that you have a screen in your pocket, which is able to layer all sorts of different mental models and cognitive biases on top of itself, like an echo chamber and confirmation bias. And, you know, all the different things that you have when you follow people on Twitter and then the algorithm starts to re-deliver you more content, which, you know, either outrage or agreement are the two things, et cetera, et cetera, all that stuff, right? So you you we we didn't know what was going to go on with that. That happened.
55:21 Chris Williamson? And now I think everyone has realized we probably fucked up a bit with social media. We've probably ungoverned or there's not enough governance around. Are these things a platform or a pipeline? Are they a publisher? Um, should we be monitoring the content? Should they be allowed to deplatform people if they're not breaking the law or all this sort of stuff? And I think a lot of the general public and sort of techie people are looking forward now with a little bit more mindfulness about what what's going on. Are we are we about to unleash the next thing? And then the analogy Sam Harris uses, it's really, really interesting. He he talks about how he sees a ceiling.
56:05 Chris Williamson? There's a ceiling on how much behavior change you can get from a two dimensional phone that's in your hand. And that that ceiling gets raised and we don't know by how much. How much does it get raised by AR? How much do you get raised by VR? How much do you get raised by, I guess, this always on VR holographic sort of stuff, which is somewhere between AR, VR and and and something else. Um, yeah, I again, you know, before the Manhattan Project, like you didn't need to have any legislation for nuclear bombs because there was no nuclear bombs. And inevitably with technology, the legislation always lags behind the actual technology coming out. You can't. And on top of that, once the genie's out of the bottle, it's not going back in the cage.
56:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
56:49 Chris Williamson? So.
56:49 Speaker 01 Absolutely. Yeah.
56:52 Chris Williamson? It's a space I'm glad I'm not having to legislate or govern in. It sounds like it would be a bit messy.
56:57 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, there was the, um, the government did a select committee looking at immersive technologies and addiction. Um, which starts in January. So I gave evidence to it in January, which is all a little bit surreal.
57:10 Chris Williamson? Was that the House of Commons?
57:12 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, it was the, um, DCMS. Um, and the report was published only a few weeks ago. Yeah, September the 12th, I think. Um, so it's all online and, and that's really interesting, actually. There's really interesting findings in there. And it's gaming and addiction, um, but also around immersive as well. And one thing that I spoke a lot about was, um, you know, the impact and everything that we've learned from cyberbullying and social networks that need to be stopped before it starts, and it's already starting in VR social spaces. Um, and there was a really interesting study done last year, um, with loads of people that were using social VR spaces.
57:57 Speaker 01 And the amount of people, it's like 60% of people, um, felt that they'd been harassed in social spaces in VR. Um, particularly women, but quite a high number of men as well. Um, and I've always found social VR really creepy. Like, I don't like it. Um, it always reminds me of that kind of early internet chat room where
58:18 Chris Williamson? MSN or?
58:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, you didn't quite know who was there and it was all a little bit weird. Um, and that's what it's like in social VR when these weird kind of bodyless, um, or armless or legless kind of avatars come creeping up to you and be like, hey, Sarah, how are you?
58:36 Chris Williamson? On top of that as well, like, think about the people who have adopted that technology at this stage of its life. But that is-
58:44 Speaker 01 Oh, because I'm one of them.
58:45 Chris Williamson? Yeah, I know, I know, I know.
58:49 Chris Williamson? Way to make your guests feel feel nice and comfortable.
58:52 Speaker 01 Thanks for that.
58:52 Chris Williamson? I know, but you understand my point. You understand my point. It is selecting for something and we don't know what it's selecting for. But it's definitely selecting for the first PhD in immersive storytelling, but we know there's only one of you. So what are the rest of them, right? And you, you know, there's going to be some people in there who are non-typical by virtue of the fact that there's not many of them.
59:13 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And there are some great things being done in social VR spaces and there's quite a lot now with kind of women only rooms. But you can also, you know, go to campfires, you can go on like musical nights, you can do karaoke on a Friday night. It's very much the oasis in Ready Player One. It's very much that kind of world. You've got lots of different places to explore. And but what the tech companies have done, which is really good, if you are in a social space and people are coming towards you and it's freaking you out, you can put a safety bubble around you. So you you create this kind of, this is my personal space, you get out of my bubble kind of restriction.
59:56 Chris Williamson? I run nightclubs. That's my job. I've run nightclubs for 13 years. And if I can get someone to create a real life version of that, my work life will be 10x in terms of its comfort. Get out of my personal space. I need around about three feet in all directions, please. Thank you.
1:00:14 Speaker 01 Absolutely, absolutely. But I thought that was really interesting.
1:00:18 Chris Williamson? Yeah, it is. It is. But again, it shows the fact that we have this sort of very visceral response to to people and we can't, we can't distinguish because there's nothing to be afraid of. Like, it's just another chat room. You don't know if my bits are close to your like bits in the way that we're transferring information now, but because it's not represented visually in a way that our senses can tell. I'm not bothered. So, yeah.
1:00:47 Speaker 01 Yeah. It comes down to that question of. How real is the virtual really? And do we perceive it to be real or not? Um, and if what we're trying to get to is a place where we cannot decipher what's real and what's not, then that can be, you know, it can be just as bad. You know, for for somebody to, you know, harass you um virtually, whether it's within a virtual reality environment or whether it's on a cyberbullying thing, it's still harassment.
1:01:27 Speaker 01 Um, so it it's quite difficult to to kind of comprehend. And it it's difficult for people to accept that it's just as bad. But it is.
1:01:39 Chris Williamson? Well, anyone who knows about the the rubber hand experiment.
1:01:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly.
1:01:44 Chris Williamson? Knows that you can literally trick your brain by using visual cues into feeling something physically. And forget how it feels emotionally. Um, I, yeah, I, it really is a bit of a minefield, isn't it?
1:01:58 Speaker 01 Yeah, a little bit.
1:01:59 Chris Williamson? Hmm.
1:02:00 Speaker 01 But you can always press your bubble.
1:02:02 Chris Williamson? Press your bubble, get my bubble out there. Honestly, I want it for the real world. So, uh, Dr. Jones, today's been amazing. Thank you so much.
1:02:09 Speaker 01 Thank you very much for having me.
1:02:10 Chris Williamson? If the the listeners want to find out some more things, are there any cool blogs or websites? Or where would you direct them and where can they where can they find you as well?
1:02:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, so I I want Twitter, um, live on Twitter, virtual Sarah J, um, always online. Um, or in a virtual world somewhere. Um, but there are loads of really, like, all of the tech platforms, Upload VR. And all of those kinds of places are great for kind of immersive news. Um, and just try and check out, so I'd always say try and check out. We've just had Raindance the last weekend, um, which has been full of really interesting um VR experiences. Um, and if anyone is in Bristol, um, there's the first VR cinema based in Bristol,
1:02:59 Speaker 01 run by Catherine Allen, um, called Limini, Limini, I can't say it, that word, find it, Bristol's VR cinema. Um, I'll send it to you, um, which is is great and they have loads of great experiences. It's a really easy way to get people in. Um, so really good stuff there too.
1:03:18 Chris Williamson? Awesome. Dr. Jones, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Links to everything we've spoken about will be in the show notes below. @virtualSarahJ on Twitter. If you have any questions, feel free to go and drop a message. For now, thank you very much.
1:03:46 Speaker 02 Mr. President, my company told me of the explosion on our rig.
1:03:50 Speaker 03 On October 2nd.
1:03:51 Speaker 02 Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.
1:03:56 Speaker 03 Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess. And Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.
1:04:03 Speaker 02 What would happen if I stopped drilling? You start, you freeze to death, that's what.
1:04:07 Speaker 03 With great power comes great deniability.
1:04:11 Speaker 02 I'm not the first daddy.
1:04:12 Speaker 03 Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not admitted without parent.
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