The conference kicked off with an opening keynote address, delivered by Ori Inbar, co-founder of the AWE event.
He says that AR (Augmented Reality), VR (Virtual Reality), MR (Mixed Reality) and AI Artificial Intelligence) are all tech enablers of spatial computing and that AWE is the platform to accelerate the adoption of spatial computing.
This theme has been carried across all other sessions, especially where it comes to finding new techniques for storytelling, where the consumer becomes the hero of the experience.
Less text, more visual. Must be spatial; must have a wiki; and creators “of the spatial kind” Onsites will replace website. #AWE2019 pic.twitter.com/53EstmJFYS
— Charlie Fink (@CharlieFink) May 29, 2019
Fans and communities are brought together to watch a live event in a complete VR environment. This type of Social VR has created Oculus friendships, the benefit of being part of a shared social experience.
The New York Times adapted their content to provide immersive storytelling for their readers. Where previous VR content would "take you there", recent AR content would "bring it to you".
A typical experience would be reading an AR article on your mobile device. Something will be augmented into your space, for example, a real scale art piece into your living room. The reader is able to " lean into" the content - walk up to it - and scroll to keep on reading the article.
The session that stood out for me was ILM xLab and their innovations in storytelling.
For them, emerging tech represented new platforms for expression and saw the development of their Immersive entertainment where users " step inside" their stories.
An example of this hyper-reality experience is the release of Vader Immortal Episode 1.
For them, "storytelling" has become "story living".
