Pop Up Thinglab 10: VR At Stanmore Library

Relaxing With Virtual Reality in Stanmore Library

Pop Up Thinglab 10 was an open and public virtual reality workshop for anyone held in the reception of Stanmore Library.

We had a group of comfortable armchairs around a coffee table - people relaxed, took their time in conversation and asked for informative and relaxing virtual reality experiences. Did the physical environment influence what people wanted in their virtual environment?

One lady sat down and told me she had a stressful day and could I find something to relax her ... we searched Youtube #360, she put on a Cardboard VR viewer and her headphones for better immersion and went swimming with dolphins -  Swimming with Wild Dolphins in the Ocean and Dolphin encounter on the Great Barrier Reef. 

Curious about what was going on other people joined what for a while became "virtual reality relaxation therapy" in the local library - watching 360/VR videos from the Youtube #360 playlist "Moment of Zen", visiting exotic beaches such as Lanikai Beach Hawaii, a Maldives Beach & Resort and scuba diving off Green Island Taiwan.

While some visitors wanted "virtual reality relaxation therapy" others wanted "virtual reality education" and asked for the informative documentaries from With.in and NYTVR such as "A History of Cuban Dance", "Clouds over Sidra", "The Displaced" and "Seeking Pluto's Frigid Heart" 

While some visitors wanted virtual reality education or relaxation therapy others wanted adventure and exhilarating entertainment and for these we arranged trips to rollercoasters, the Eiger north face, ski jumping, wingsuit flying, tightrope walking and spacewalking

As usual children have no problem with new technology such as virtual reality ... they are growing up and finding out new things all the time anyway. Natural curiosity and desire for learning makes children enthusiastic and excited to use new technology but at the same time they also just seem to take new technology their stride.

This was the third time out with our 360\VR camera and I only took one "flat" image ... everything else I recorded was either a 360\VR image or video -  the "flat image" used at the top of this blog post is in fact a screenshot of a 360\VR image I uploaded to Flickr here! I'm thinking of 360\VR as the natural next stage in photography and media - recording and playing back the world with increasing realism ... moving from mono to colour, to video, to digital and now to digital first person perspective played back "as if you were there". All these forms of imagery will co-exist - there are great reasons to use flat mono photography but also great reasons to use 360\VR media. I'm thinking of 360\VR as the next stage of media but not the final stage ... we are only at the very start of 360\VR media development and there are greater levels of immersion to come but I think there are many more "evolutionary" steps in recording the world yet to come ... more on this in future blog posts.

Virtual reality has such interesting potential to introduce us to new experiences that might otherwise be impossible or at least very difficult. 

With virtual reality Pop Up Thinglab brings education, entertainment and even therapy.

With virtual reality Pop Up Thinglab brings you impossible experiences.



For more images and videos of Pop Up Thinglab 10 visit:

Thinglab 10 360/VR video playlist
Thinglab 10 360/VR images

------

Find out more about inspireNshare at http://inspirenshare.com

Find out more about inspireNshare Thinglab at http://inspirenshare.com/thinglab

Find out more about Virtual Reality at http://inspirenshare.com/vr