VR gives artists an opportunity to explore
the narrative side of a performance.’ At
certain parts of ‘See Without Eyes’, fans are
paired randomly in an attempt to encourage
communication across physical divides. The
same idea was integral to the Wave featur-
ing Iranian-born, London-based experi-
mental musician Ash Koosha, who was able
to ‘tour’ the US virtually, despite Trump’s
travel ban.
Not all Waves combine lasers, lights
and high intensity. Pioneering songwriter
Imogen Heap aimed for a more intimate
VR space, inviting fans into her Essex
home for her 40th birthday. As visitors
approached, the walls and floorboards of
her house appeared and merged with the
natural world, producing a calming, ethereal
space for watching Heap perform. The team
recorded 1TB of depth videos of the room,
with Heap in it, creating something akin to a
heat map, but every pixel signified distance
rather than temperature. Video footage
overlaid on the 3D map permitted the audi-
ence to watch Heap from any position in the
room. In the song ‘Let Go’, Heap transforms
into a point cloud of glowing particles,
and in another she becomes a spectre in
a cathedral-like space. ‘This piece is much
more about the connection between you
and Imogen,’ says Arrigo, ‘and not like doing
virtual drugs on the dance floor.’
The company’s most high-profile
collaboration to date has been with StevenSpielberg. TheWaveVR conjured a VR
experience for his 2018 film, Ready Player
One. Arrigo first ‘met’ Spielberg in VR to
discuss the project. ‘I had to go over to this
cat avatar that was zooming everywhere and
say, “Excuse me, are you Steven Spielberg?”,’
he laughs. Many directors now use VR to
preview scenes, and the TheWaveVR often
chooses to meet in digital space, especially
when reviewing a new build. ‘The idea of the
central office isn’t going to make sense in the
future, when it’ll be easier to be in a virtual
space together.’ TheWaveVR’s 45-minute
show allows fans to explore an iconic scene
from the film located in a zero-gravity night-
club with a body-popping robot, light-up
dance floor and the ability to fly around the
neon-lit space. ‘From a spatial perspective,
it was really interesting, because when you
watch a film, it’s just in 2D, but here you
project through the fourth wall.’
Like the film, the Wave is a pastiche
of ’80s and ’90s pop-culture references:
think Back to the Future and Batman. The
club regenerates multiple times through-
out the show. Ready Player One has been a
useful cultural touch point for TheWaveVR,
as its contribution to the movie perfectly
clarifies what the company can offer. ‘Peo-
ple who saw the film undoubtedly thought
oh god, someday the future will be like this,’
says Arrigo. ‘My response is: actually, we
already did it.’ ●
thewavevr.com‘Trips’ allow
two people
to leave the
environment
for an
intimate
45-second
psychedelic
experience
Many Waves, such as that created for
Glitch Mob, offer opportunities for
users to have more intimate, one-on-
one experiences with other members
of the audience.174 SHOWS