Giant: the real virtual reality of a war-zone.

When I was in my early 20's, long before I wrote for Business Week or covered Design, I was in a war zone. For a time, I wrote for The Far Eastern Economic Review out of Laos. The experience gave me nightmares for a long time. Today I went back into a war zone and it was just as real — only it wasn’t. I joined a father, mother and their little girl in a room that was under attack. I was with their fears, their hopes and, finally, their destruction. I wasn’t looking AT them, as part of an audience looking at a play on a stage. I was AMONGST them, in the room, realizing their final fate.

Giant (giantofficial.com), by director Milicia Zec and producer Winslow Turner Porter is a virtual reality short narrative that takes the concept of “aura” to a 21st century level. Your engagement with the art is far more intimate and intense than anything that has come before it. VR puts you INSIDE THE ART, not outside looking at it. I don’t exactly know what they means yet, but it is huge. It’s a new creative volatility that has to be navigated and curated.

And it’s not just about the technology. great story-telling of Giant, with live actors, not animation, and a dramatic story-line (thanks to scriptwriter Lizzie Donahue) makes the experience virtually real. Real enough for me to worry about nightmares tonight.

Zec and Porter work out of New Inc, the arts incubator where I now sit. Todd Bryant, Giant’s Director of Creative Technologies, works out of NYU’s ITP. Giant was a huge hit at Sundance recently (the verge.com) and now Zec, Porter and Bryant must take next steps. Funding, strategy, agents, form (art, commerce or both)…exciting times for incredibly talented people. Suggestions for them?