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The Virtual Reality of Our Dreams
How different is virtual reality from dreaming?
Expanding on yesterday’s blog post (“What Will Be Your Spinning Top?”), a primary rationale for trying virtual reality is escapism. The same goes for movies, TV, music, art, vacationing, etc. Escapism is powerful. Escapism is an amazing thing. In realizing so, virtual reality (VR) can take this universal dreamlike pursuit and characteristic of virtually everybody in the world and capitalize on this frequent need and want to explore and immerse ourselves into all sorts of places, real and imagined. It’s not far-fetched to speculate the world we live in today, on planet Earth day-to-day, could become just the ground level of myriad worlds and realities, customized by the individual.
One of the connections made in “What Will Be Your Spinning Top?” was between VR and the movie Inception. While I am in no way predicting a shot-for-shot vision of the film for the evolving technology of VR, I do believe there is an argument to be made that VR will feel more like an indistinguishable dream than a static experience standing in the middle of a Best Buy aisle.
With a headset, of course.
Take a visual ride into what I’m talking about.
Accomplishing something in five minutes that usually takes an hour? Not such a bad reality.
Or dream-like world?
Or reality…?
What Will Be Your Spinning Top?
(Inception, IFC.com)
The depth to which virtual reality (VR) is integrated into multiple facets of our lives and society in the coming decade or so could very well begin the process of introducing a burgeoning world akin to Christopher Nolan’s 2010 mind-bending cinematic epic Inception.
You ever have those days when real life doesn’t quite seem like real life? Get ready because that feeling may be redefined in ways (or dimensions) we can’t yet imagine.
VR is a technological gold mine that has yet to officially strike, well, gold. In essence, VR has amounted to something closer to fool’s gold. Perhaps that’s not an entirely fair analysis, but the promise of an ever-expansive, seamless virtual world with newfound capabilities (fantastical and realistic) has been in the development phase for many decades. Yes, there are virtual reality headsets and games here and there. However, the technology has yet to be streamlined into our day-to-day lives.
In other words, VR has not been given the Apple-treatment.
By Apple-treatment, that means no individual or company has figured out the long sought-after universal approach to personalize VR like an iPhone or iPod with an overarching, dynamic, connected and reactive infrastructure. And that’s the key to VR becoming a technological gold mine. This streamlined achievement would be the pivot from intriguing accessory to necessity.
When will this happen? Likely in the not-so-distant future. Why? The pieces are here, scattered and evolving as they may appear. Whether used for gazing up at the stars and planets or for gaming or for the growing VR for educational purposes (to name just a few), people continue to crave alternate worlds and realities. Or, at the very least, new and imaginative perspectives. The bottom line is that enough of the necessary pieces are around if someone or some company (new or established) has the ingenuity to envision the most expansive virtual reality ever imagined that will allow us to immerse ourselves in with animated curiosity.
And you thought the movie Inception was confusing with its dream world, subconscious and spinning top…
just wait until Inception is your new reality.
Cinema’s First Steps
“Je veux vous montrer quelque chose…”
(“I want to show you something…”)
This could have been said by the Lumière brothers (Louis and Auguste), who were pioneers in motion pictures in Lyon, France. Long before IMAX, 3-D and superheroes galore, cinema was born out of, to put it in a disappointingly anticlimactic way, walking out of a factory.
That was it. No exaggeration.
Still, despite the pedestrian nature of this cleverly titled documentary, “Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory” or “Exiting the Factory,” seeing the inception of cinema with the first projected film is a wonderful reminder of how far movies we enjoy today have improved and innovated through the decades. There’s a beginning to everything and, as a movie fan, the following video is quite exciting because this film underscores how the world was forever changed in ways the workers walking from their job and the Lumière brothers never could’ve imagined.
On March 22, 1895, cinema visually framed the world.
French factory workers literally opened the doors of cinema.
Happy Monday!
Last night, Olympic viewers were treated to one of the most anticipated events by one of the most anticipated nations: The Two-Man Jamaican Bobsled Team. Despite a less than stellar time, that wasn’t the core reason for the excitement and widespread jubilation surrounding their return to the Winter Olympics for the first time in 12 years. It all dates back to the 1993 Disney classic, Cool Runnings, based on events from their improbable bobsled debut at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary.
We all know the story and we all love the story.
When the Jamaicans prepared their run last night, everybody was leaning in as close as possible (both in the stands and at home) to try and hear if they would say that magically inspiring phrase…
The following video is fan-made and combines an epic finish with an epic song by Hans Zimmer. 20 some odd years later and people still view this story as unforgettably special and, yes, transcendent (please turn the volume up for the video/song).
This story never needed a gold medal to be seen as a golden Olympic moment.
“Respect!”
Happy Monday Mon!
Jimmy's Daily Planet 