Multiverse is an immersive – 360 hybrid AR-VR interactive music experience, subtly hinting on the parallels between the dream world, Astral planes, and the Waking Reality all joined together through fractal forces of nature. A journey in the inner cosmic space and exploring the long-hidden myths around the Pineal gland, the seat of the soul.
Layed upon real world canvas, It exploits the current AR-VR technologies and delivers one of the richest Mixed Reality experience to the current date (early2020).
The experience sits right at the edge[or in between] realms exploring the fractuality of the nature of reality and the spira mirabilis on which the reality is constructed ~ a logarithmic spiral, equiangular spiral, or growth spiral is a self-similar spiral curve which often appears in nature. ~ exploring parallels between fractal occurrences in nature; linking our reality, virtuality, and the dreamworld …
Multiverse features different realms and walkable Portals, shifted around by interacting the God Particles with the Pineal.
Multiverse offers a very unique experience of hybrid AR-VR. It takes ones through several spaces where player needs to interact with several elements to proceed. Interaction is done without any controllers [by hand detection].
Multiverse features both depth based AR(Mixed Reality) and switches in between into a VR dream world and back. It also features Portals layed upon real world, like a doorway into other realms, users can physically walk through these portals to explore spaces.
The elements within the experience are audio reactive and symphonies with the custom music track by ‘saszer // sz’. Elements also have 3D audio layers which means the sound is affected by proximity and location of the player in the playspace. The music track is overlayed through the timeline and proceeds as the experience proceeds and loops into itself when waiting for user interaction, creating a seamless immersed audio-visual experience. Each stage of the experience is carefully woven together with the music track and its energy.
>> Multiverse – XR, Full walkthrough. *Spoilers Alert* *Reading and watching recorded Multiverse is not a comparable experience to being in it* >>
The player starts in a mixed reality setting where the journey of the hero begins if one dares to dive within and touch the chaos. A Pine emerges with God Particles around. Here the player needs to collide a God Particle with the pine to move further.
The Pine is seen as a representation of the Pineal gland, which exists deep in the brain and gets it’s name from the pinecone which closely resembles to its shape. The Pineal gland secretes hormones such as Melatonin and DMT and modulates sleep patterns in both circadian and seasonal cycles, it is responsible for vivid dreams and REM sleep cycles connecting the astral and dream planes. Pineal gland is often referred to as the seat of the soul and a connecting entrance between the soul and the body.
Inexperience – On the first collision, the Pine secrets fluid gravitating towards the sky which is very fun to play within XR. The liquid droplets can be combined, smashed, and thrown with the hands. It sticks too! Here, the reality goes liquid wavy and underwatery like.
‘An interesting fact was noted amongst user testing players here, Immersed players were unable to see any effect of this liquid reality, while on-screen when outside VR, it was very prominent. probably as there were no straight lines to refer to in VR, our brains ignore it. Maybe Reality is liquidish and we get used to it. The effect amplitude was significantly increased to make it visible in immersed players conscious’ To Proceed, user needs to collide the second Particle to the Pine.
To Note: The god particles[cubes] are flowing in a flowfield around the Playspace, which is also audio-reactive and flows around with the music. The experience is made in a way that If the user is unable to make particles collide, there’s a possibility of them colliding on their own so the experience can move further if it’s taking too long.
A transition from real to dream world mimics the dithering of reality where small black spots emerge around and engulf one in total darken and then in the fractal neon abyss. As they spin around cosmic fractals, Players often experience body dissociation sometimes and floaty sensory feeling as there is no ground, and visuals are moving rapidly while they are immersed in VR.
After the astral spin you arrive at a world of infinite beings made of stardust, which all are a representation of you. The idea of how every being is one and a mirror of each other.
After which the experience transition back to the augmented setting(layed on real-world) like closing a petal around the user and opening the eyes, Where a Huge Portal can be seen, inside Portal, you can see distorted space cosmos. You can walk through this Portal and explore this ambient cosmic space. Here you are free join your hands together (Namaste) in your own time to exit.
The objective of this exploration was to create one of the most rich hybrid AR-VR experiences. To create immersive playful exploratory spaces creating the first sense of awe and sensory floating feeling. More technical information and further esoteric conceptual thinkings behind the project can be found through links below.
RMIT MAGI EXPO 2019
RMIT MAGI EXPO 2019
