About Yorb 2020 and our online presence
Lately, I have been very uncomfortable with the limitations of how we are present and interact with other people online. I won't talk about text-based platforms like Whatsapp, Telegram, nor about social networks like Instagram, Facebook. I will focus on the sense of online presence, which I relate to audiovisual interaction (necessarily, the camera with the person’s face and voice).
Using rooms like Google Meet and Zoom, everyone has to remain silent so that only one person can speak at a time. This cuts off possibilities for spontaneous and parallel conversations. The interaction metaphor is the meeting room. And, of course, in that context, it can be productive. But for exhibitions and, primarily, online parties, it inhibits the most exciting part, which is exchanging ideas without having a clear script or having a well-defined goal.
On the other hand, we have the countless lives of Instagram and Youtube whose audience participation is ephemeral (one can get in and out without changing the state of the event). The only channel of interaction between audience-audience and audience-presenter is a chat. There is no notion of the “presence” of the audience, only of the presenter.
Given my discomfort, I’ve been experimenting with some tools that attempt to overcome these interaction metaphor’s restrictions.
After getting the reference by listening to the Resumido podcast, the first tool I tested was Online Town. Extremely simple, a pixelated little figure walking through a 2D environment. The closer you are to someone, the person’s audio volume gets louder, and the camera appears. As the person moves away, the person’s sound and camera fade out until they disappear after a distance threshold. This is already cool, it gives the possibility of emerging small groups of conversations. All in the same environment, but spontaneously, people coming together for common interests. For me, the downside of Online Town is that the experience is a bit schizophrenic because my avatar is in the environment, but my camera appears under the main canvas.
On Monday, May 18, 2020, I met Yorb through Daniel Shiffman’s YouTube channel (Coding Train), a professor at the ITP-NYU (Interactive Telecommunication Program). At the end of the semester, there is an exhibition on ITP’s 4th floor with students’ projects. Because of COVID, they decided to do it online. They were inspired by "an interactive television show produced from 1992 to 1995" and implemented the Yorb 2020 platform. A 3D environment, ultra-simple, low-tech, with the project’s posters spread across the room. You can get close and have more details by clicking on the works. So far, I hadn’t seen much fun since it is basically a 3D interface for any website.
But what impressed me the most was the interaction with the visitors in the virtual hall. Each person in the platform has an avatar with the head as a cube with the webcam image. This avatar can walk through 3D space and interact with the posters. Like Online Town, the sound’s volume is related to the distance you are from another person.
One can say that this is not new, because Second Life has existed since 2003. Also, in this pandemic, some undergraduate courses organized graduation in Minecraft. Also, there was the massive Travis Scott's show at Fortnite, right? However, there is a subtle but powerful difference between these systems and Yorb.
Second Life, Minecraft, or Fortnite (or even Mozilla Hubs) avatars are not the participant’s camera showing up. When they are not intentionally a completely different figure from the user, they may even be representations similar to the user's real appearance, but they are approximations. When you place your camera as the head of your avatar, there is a closer relation to other people’s sense of your presence.
Besides, you are the one walking there in an environment. Mobility is essential to give autonomy. The avatars are not static windows in a Google Meet room, Zoom, Skype. Being able to get away, walk, be where you want brings a feeling of freedom.
In the vernissage of the ITP-NYU students’ exhibition, I interacted with several people, participated in different conversation circles. People that I didn’t priorly know. It is an extraordinary feeling because I really felt the presence of people inside the room. Some came to talk to me and others I could hear in the background. There were parallel conversations with their buzz, meetings without a script. It was a very crazy experience. Nobody had to remain silent, and only one person to speak, it was just getting away a little.
I was so excited about the experience that I wanted more people to feel what I had felt and started inviting several people to visit the room with me. One of them was Miguel Mendes, my idol, musician, producer, teacher, co-founder of Pachka (music production duo), and Estesia (immersive sound and light show). He immediately had the idea of calling Carlos Filho (also from Estesia) to enter the platform and think about the show’s experimental presentation. Weeks later, the experiment aired. I soon found myself jumping with other people listening to the sounds played by Tom BC (Estesia's wizard of beats). Here’s a little of how it went:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CBtLQfRn8S0/
Yorb is still a limited project with a lot of room for improvements, but it already proves an exciting concept. I think it can be an alternative to the countless, ephemeral, and interactionless lives of Youtube and Instagram and to the static and imposing Google Meet and Zoom meeting rooms. In this pandemic, it quenches people’s strong will to connect with each other.
Yorb project link: https://yorb.online
