RTVR: A Podcast on Virtual Reality

Recorded & Produced By RTVF 298; Curated by Carter Moulton.

Episode 1

Episode I: Marcus & Olivia try to map their experiences and talk about looking at their hands, walking around Evanston in the past, playing VR with glasses, and the awful sound of dying in “The Climb.”

taken from Reality Media

Episode 2

Episode II: Maddy & Ben talk about trying to climb with one hand, visiting home in VR, awkward stares from Darth Vader, the aesthetics of white saviorism, and again, the sounds of dying in “The Climb.”

Episode 3

Episode III: Sarah & Sofia discuss VR’s links to touristic ways-of-seeing and the disconnect between Silicon Valley’s “empathy machine” rhetoric & VR’s continued inaccessibility.

Though The Garage’s Residency Program is free, Northwestern students have to apply for the residency a quarter in advance in order to access its VR and AR tech.

Episode 4

Episode IV: Matt & Chris discuss VR as transmedia extension, the odd way that joysticks are still used to move, and the sensation of being surrounded.

Despite how VR systems ask you to set a physical “boundary” (implying physical movement), many VR experiences facilitate movement through the mechanics of pointing and clicking, remediating the computer mouse. Here is an example from Coco: VR.

Episode 5

Episode V: Kendall & Mark recall random notifications popping up during Clouds of Sidra and discuss cyber-sickness, diminishing delights, and realizing you have no feet.

Research into why cyber-sickness happens and how to effectively reduce it is ongoing.

Episode 6

Episode VI: Maya & Tanner talk about virtual climbing vs. physical climbing (Tanner is a rock climber!), toxic empathy, VR horror, and “Beat Saber.”

As of now, users can upload their own .mp3s and design their own Beat Saber levels. With its recent emphasis on branding and transmediality (seen here with Billie Eilish Beat Saber and other music packs), will Beat Saber gradually shift away from this participatory culture?

Episode 7

Episode VII: Caden & Samara discuss how small things can take you out of the experience (like stepping out of the boundary zone!), feeling like the center of attention at a refugee camp, and the aura of Darth Vader.

Who is being centered here? Lisa Nakamura (2020: 52–54) suggests that “virtous VR” documentaries like Clouds Over Sidra “privilege the user’s [coded here as rich, white, male] feeling of direct experience” while furthering an idea that “you cannot trust marginalized people when they speak their own truth or describe their own suffering, but you have to experience it for yourself, through digital representation, to know that it is true.”