Virtually There: Documentary Meets Virtual Reality

The words ‘Virtually There’ suggest several meanings. Like the virtual reality at the center of this conference report, they refer to an elusive condition, a state of almost palpable presence of something that is, in fact, not actually there. But they also refer to the long-term condition of technological solutions designed to achieve this goal. Historically speaking, each new breakthrough has been greeted as a sign that we have almost achieved our goal of creating the ultimate simulation machine … that we are virtually there.

As a conference, Virtually There gathered together leading makers, technologists, academics, curators, and critics for two days of intensive demonstrations and discussions regarding the possibilities and implications of using VR for documentary. In these still early days, when competing consumer-grade VR systems together with massive capital investment and still-evolving user scenarios all generate a lot of noise, VR is in a state of interpretive flexibility. The conference sought to make use of that malleability, discussing strategies of working with various stakeholders in order to make the most of VR’s creative, critical, and civic potentials. Speakers addressed the challenges of the new medium’s aesthetics, ethics, and issues of access, while interrogating the medium’s added value to the documentary tradition. Some speakers drew upon historical precedent for their insights, while others drew on their experiments as creators, and still others on various forms of field and laboratory work. Together, they mapped the contours of VR as a desire, as a technological ensemble, and as a set of possibilities for the documentary form.

This conference report summarizes the main threads of the discussion, linking where appropriate to the event’s online recording and to external reports.

Download full conference report here.