Digital Reality Fly-Through

Yesterday's event "Digital Reality Fly-Through" at the "Dana Centre" was literaly a quick fly through various aspects of what has become popular under the term "Virtual Reality" within the last couple of years.

Having speakers from various backgrounds on the panel - namely Ruth Gibson and Bruno Martelli from Igloo, from a UK based multimedia artist group; David Surman, Senior Lecturer in Computer Games Design at the University of Wales, Newport; Marco Gillies, research fellow at the Department of Computer Science at University College London; Tanya Kryzwinska, an academic who conducts research into digital games, and who is the Vice President of Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) as well as Martin Packer from Framestores-CFC, a special effects company - promised the discussion to become controversial and suspenseful. However unfortunately the presenters had to rush through their presentations and the way the format was set up did not allow them to talk to each other. Instead, the speechers then moved from table to table in order to discuss with the audience about the topic. Since the time was very limited to the maximum of five minutes "per round", all attempts to dig deeper into the topics about what "virtual reality" is and how it changes preception, creates hopes and fears, enhances visions, enables to become interactive in a different way or clash worlds failed. The "Gong" knocked out any conversations abruptly.

If only the discussion round at the end of the event would have been longer, I am sure, the topic would have provided a lot of exciting material to discuss about!

(This article is based on my personal opinion, experience and perception.)