South by Southwest 2021

Featured Panel with Gabo Arora, Nonny de la Peña, and Tiffany Kieran (55 min).

"We are just beginning to understand how we're going to connect in virtual ways... we're going to be shifting into integrated extended reality, AR and VR, into our everyday life so we need to be thinking about how we can use this technology for good" -Nonny de la Peña


VR has gotten quite a reputation for creating impact. But does the hype really add up? We are at a pivotal moment in history, with socio-political division at an all-time high and less than a decade left to prevent climate crisis. Could creating virtual realities actually help move us towards a better tomorrow? Join AR/VR producer and director Fifer Garbesi; award-winning immersive artist and professor Gabo Arora; Director of EarthXR Tiffany Kieran; and founder of Emblematic Group Nonny de la Peña as they dig into the impacts of this medium, putting real change and direct action front and center.

References are included here for those watching the talk to explore the projects more deeply.

Nonny de la Peña - Emblematic Group

Hunger in LA

Project Syria

One Dark Night

Gabo Arora

My Mother's Wing

ZIKR

The Last Goodbye

The Day the World Changed

These Sleepless Nights

Tiffany Kieran - Earth XR 

Navajo Water Project

Why VR? 

Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab

Democratization of the Narrative

Reach

Blood Memory XR

Voices of Amerikua

If Not Us Then Who

The Hip Hop Caucus

21st Century Mermaids

Code Break- Robyn Burrell

Creating Impact

Growing a World Wonder

Greenland Melting

Across the Line

Guardians of the Kingdom

Shark Water VR

Ethical Infrastructure

Shoshana Zuboff - 'The Age of Surveillance Capitalism'

Jaron Lanier

Jonathan Zittrain

VR Tracking Data - VHIL in Nature