Björk is among the very best pop artists working today, and unsurprisingly, her use of VR is just innovative: She's using a full-body motion capture suit here to become a fully-realized, alien-robot avatar in a virtual world created in Unity 3D. This video and others were originally streamed as full VR experiences, but for those who don't want to wear a headset, the 2D version above is about as powerful. I've been writing about how pop music might be transformed by virtual worlds at least since Duran Duran set up a presence in Second Life, but something keeps preventing more than a handful of top artists from experimenting with it.
Probably it's the fact that live, in-person performances are such an important revenue stream for pop stars, and there's no way a shared VR experience can replicate that. (It's not just the simulation of being with a crowd of fans, but all the sensuality that the digital can't reproduce.) Unless and until we see a large enough audience of VR users willing to pay, say, $5 for a virtual performance by a RL star, I don't see that changing.
Maybe more than that, there are few pop stars as ideally suited to VR as Björk, whose music and persona have always been otherworldly. (Above, Björk working just as well in animated form.) In other words, I doubt there'll be much of an audience for popstars as avatars -- except for popstars who already seem like avatars.
Video hat tip: Brooke Erdmann.
Or you can just go to a live show in a small local club with a singer-songwriter performing solo or with a small group. No gadgets beyond the amps and sound board, and the beers taste great IRL.
Real reality is underrated.
Posted by: Iggy 1.0 | Wednesday, April 05, 2017 at 02:54 AM