These are curious times for virtual reality. Citing underwhelming content, some analysts are predicting that augmented reality will supplant VR as the interactive art form for the masses. On the flip side, an unprecedented seven-figure deal to buy a virtual reality movie just made waves at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Creative professionals have a stocked laboratory of technology enabling VR experimentation. Can VR hit its stride and gain wide adoption before consumers move on?

In the Intel Tech Lounge at Sundance, a panel of four VR and AR professionals predicted the future of interactive art and craft. The festival has welcomed interactive artists in years past, but creative juices finally burst the levee this year, according to Lisa Watts (pictured, second from left), VR marketing strategist at Intel Corp. “This feels like the breakout year,” Watts told John Furrier (@furrier, pictured, right), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio. (* Disclosure below.)

Creatives are more adept than ever at wielding the technological tools that build stunning VR experiences, Watts explained. They are pushing boundaries, and Intel is watching the action closely for tips on how to improve it’s products in the future.

State of the VR art

Although the tech is here, innovation is spiking, and integration at Sundance is tighter, VR is still not where it could be, according to Brooks Brown (pictured, left), global director of VR of Starbreeze Studios. VR has not yet come into its own as a unique medium that isn’t simply aping games or film, he stated. While tools are indispensable, there are too few people prototyping the concept of story as per VR.

Starbreeze has worked on location-based VR experiences for some time now. Thousands upon thousands of pitches have come in from people with cinema and gaming pedigrees — and it’s usually easy to tell which right off the bat, Brown explained. “It’s very few people who come down that middle line and go, ‘Well, this is what VR is supposed to be; this is that interesting thing that makes it very deeply unique.'”

Starbreeze has partnered with the likes of IMAX Corp. to build the world’s first location-based VR experiences. The studio opted to skip the typical consumer VR channels and go straight to location-based and enterprise markets. This move saves major costs for audiences who need not invest in personal VR headsets or other devices to partake.

Starbreeze tested out its goods on Sundance attendees with its VR experience “Hero.” The production transports viewers into a world shaken by crisis and warfare. Various interactive scenarios that combine documentary elements, physical sensations and DTSX object-based audio test their mettle in rescuing those around them.

The intensely personal experience that results represents the best that VR is capable of in its present state, according to Brown. It is neither linear like film, nor does it follow gaming’s pre-set multiple choice format. It puts the person inside the event — often with profound effects. Some festival attendees found the “Hero” experience a bit too intense.

“A number of them simply, actually couldn’t handle it,” he said. “We had to pull people out. The moment we took the head set off, tears were streaming down their face.” In VR experiences such as “Hero,” participants don’t just play a character or peer into a separate world. “You are you inside of that space. That is a dangerous but very promising ability of VR,” Brown said. 

VR experience “Giant” arouses similar reactions in viewers. “We had to go and buy tissues right off the bat, because people were crying in the headset,” said Winslow Porter (pictured, center), Giant’s producer and co-founder and director at New Reality Co. The experience takes participants through the trauma of a family facing an impending bomb attack.

“In Giant, we made sure that we gave them a trigger warning, because these things can be intensely intimate or personal for somebody who already has that sort of baggage with them or could be living in a similar experience,” Porter said. Well-defined regulations around VR and potential triggering are lacking at the moment and will likely need to be developed going forward, he added.

No more games: VR for good

VR immersion makes for more than a rollicking good show, according to Gary Radburn (second from right), director of workstation virtualization, commercial VR and AR at Dell Technologies Inc. Broader access to VR tools via more reasonable pricing is opening up new use cases in healthcare and professional training, for instance.

“That helps content creators, because there’s now more of an audience that can now consume that content. And the people that can then play with the medium and consume it now have a better reason to do it,” he said.

Psychologist Skip Rizzo, who sat on a panel at this year’s Sundance, has used VR to treat autistic individuals and post-traumatic stress disorder sufferers. VR for healthcare and social impact are two prime areas for increased experimentation and application, according to Radburn.

“That’s where it becomes really, really powerful,” he said.

In contrast to “Hero” and “Giant,” the bulk of VR has failed to jerk tears from users, or even amuse them very much. And the intensely personal experience of VR could be the very feature that hinders its adoption, according to some. Apple Inc. has kept its own toes pretty dry as other mobile companies have dipped into VR in some form.

Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has stated that VR is too isolating to interest consumers in the social age. He believes that AR that weaves a digital world into the real world holds more promise, since it does not completely swipe the user away from life. Proponents see a vast field of potential use cases for AR from sports to travel.

Worldwide spending on AR and VR will reach $17.8 billion in 2018, according to International Data Corp.

VR hits the big time

A big surprise out of Sundance this year could be a shot in the arm for VR’s commercial hopes. VR financing and distribution venture CityLights struck a seven-figure deal to acquire “Spheres” — a three-part VR series that takes viewers into deep space.

Advanced tools that speed up tweaking helped bring “Spheres” to life, according to Watts, who served as an adviser on the project. Intel now offers a full slate of tools covering VR production from creation to consumption, she stated.

Wide availability of such tools could enable sparse visionaries and experimenters to turn VR into what it truly ought to be, according to Brown. It won’t be merely neat or cool, and it won’t borrow its soul from film or gaming. The quest is to find out: “What is that thing that’s going to make someone go, ‘Oh, I get why we have VR as a medium.'”

We’re not there yet, but a lone geek tinkering in the basement could get us there any day, he concluded. 

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Sundance Film Festival. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Sundance Film Festival event. Neither Intel, the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE