In his studio in Dumbo, Brooklyn, Gabo Arora is working to finalise a fully immersive virtual reality film called The Day The World Changed. The film is to premier at the Tribeca Film Festival and will be in memory of Hiroshima. The film will recreate a very moving first -hand experience of the aftermath of this moment using photogrammetry scans of real objects, survivor testimonies and footage. It is a new way of experiencing VR as The Day That Changed the World will be experienced by four people at a time. This is to create a social experience that uses co-presence to give the space a feeling of being haunted by ghosts from the future. Instead of seeing each other in the traditional physical representation people will see each other as shadows.
It is a VR experience like no other with plenty of nervousness, excitement, stress and a sense of collaboration and diversity of creative skills.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csww6v
( 30 minute radio documentary on the making of, profile, worldwide )
The Day the World Changed is notable not just for its storytelling, but for its dramatic visualizations of a world scarred by nuclear warfare. Test sites appear as parasitic black growths on a virtual globe that looks real enough to touch, producing smoky trails that threaten to overwhelm the planet. It moves seamlessly from the personal to the universal, using the medium’s sensory immersion to heighten the emotional impact. It’s a social experience that hasn’t made it out to the public, but it’s likely to keep appearing in art shows and festivals.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/27/17270140/tribeca-film-festival-best-virtual-augmented-reality-ok-go-campfire-creepers-ardens-wake ( online, best of )
....for the first time, the act of collectively bearing witness to testimonies from the US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. Using the latest in avatar science and spatial sound technology, it introduces a whole new concept: of going through a documentary inside the documentary with other people who are also avatars, providing a whole new relationship of what a shared experience with history can be.
As I looked around the skeleton of the building, ashes fluttered by, settling on the debris-covered ground. Two other festival attendees were in the simulation with me, and in the virtual dome, all I could see of them were silhouettes that were eerily reminiscent of nuclear shadows. Through the ominous background music, I heard a disembodied voice to my right, and turned to see that it was coming from a floating satchel. One of the other participants and I walked over to it and, using the pair of controllers we held, swiped at the bag to get it to move. It didn't do much other than spin in mid-air, and the closer I got to it, the louder the voice grew as it narrated the origin of the item. I won't spoil it for you, but it belonged to someone killed the day the bomb fell.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/28/the-day-the-world-changed-vr-hiroshima-tribeca/ ( online, video, feature )
When creators tread the line between empathy and trauma carefully, immersive technology can be a powerful tool for educating the public about history.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/new-virtual-reality-experience-drops-you-hiroshima-right-after-its-been-bombed-180968903/ ( print, worldwide)
"We could not be more thrilled to support the creators of this gripping project," says Annette Porter, executive producer on the film and director of the Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund. "The Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund prides itself on elevating and empowering voices that have been ignored, voices who aren't afraid to push the envelope and explore the complexities of what drives us as a society and as individual beings. The Day the World Changed does exactly that."
https://hub.jhu.edu/2018/04/20/the-day-the-world-changed-xr-experience/ ( online )
The Day the World Changed was made at the behest of Nobel Media to show the work of last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). "When we found out it was about nuclear weapons, it was something that I think was relevant, but I don’t think any of us would have imagined how absurdly relevant it keeps getting with what’s happening [in the world]," says co-creator Gabo Arora.
https://www.wired.com/story/tribeca-film-festival-vr-political/ ( online, global )
Another VR experience that addresses social themes while still pushing the use of technology is “The Day the World Changed,” which takes place in a recreation of Hiroshima. Gabo Arora, co-creator of the project, said it is a “social interactive Virtual Reality documentary” which addresses nuclear weapons and allows users to experience life in Hiroshima the day of the atomic bombing at the end of World War II. Rather than being a passive, lonely experience, Arora pointed out that this is a rare example of a VR experience for multiple simultaneous users. “You’re doing this with three other people, so the whole concept of going through a documentary inside the documentary with other people who are also avatars gives it a whole new relationship of what a shared experience with history can be.
http://thevillager.com/2018/04/18/tangible-and-social-virtual-reality-at-tribeca-immersive/ ( print, local )
Reality gets to be too much in some projects, but that's the point. The Day the World Changed makes you complicit in the Hiroshima bombing and a witness to its aftermath.
https://www.pcmag.com/article/360569/at-the-tribeca-film-festival-swap-the-popcorn-for-vr-headse ( print )
Gabo Arora, one of the co-creators of the ‘The Day the World Changed’, describes to BBC world service listeners how the horrors of atomic bombings and the dangers of nuclear arms testing is highlighted through a social and interactive virtual reality experience.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p065xfdm ( radio interview and feature, worldwide)
You’re able to pick up discarded artifacts, which then trigger the ghostly voices of real-life testimonials from people who were either in the building after the blast, or knew people who were. The experience is designed for multiple people simultaneously. When each person picks up a separate artifact, the testimonials play together, so you’re surrounded by sorrowful tales.
At the end, you are lifted from the rubble as a deluge of photos of hundreds of people murdered by the atomic bomb flash, followed by a count of the mind-blowing number of nuclear weapons countries have stockpiled. Then your ascension halts, and you are surrounded by missiles pointing directly at you. The fear of those missiles launching at me had my heart pounding.
The Day The World Changed featured on BBC TVTalking Movies as one of the highlights of the 2018 Tribeca film festival.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0b15scw/talking-movies-tribeca-film-festival-2018 ( TV, worldwide
A moment before, I had floated up from the ruins of a bombed-out building, as if ascending to heaven. (My fear of heights was truly put to the test.) But instead of paradise, I was greeted by this over-the-top manifestation of Armageddon. Relax, I thought, none of this is real. I'm still in a Brooklyn studio, still standing on a Persian rug and waiting to meet with the creator of this interactive virtual reality experience, Gabo Arora
http//: hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2018/summer/
gabo-virtual-reality-filmmaking/ ( profile, print magazine )
Experiences ranged from Gabo Arora and Saschka Unseld’s The Day the World Changed, a room-scale experience that bears witness to Hiroshima survivors and makes a powerful case for nuclear disarmament.
“The Day The World Changed is the first ever collective bearing of witness of testimonies from Hiroshima,” says Arora. “So it’s a documentary but also a memorial. With virtual reality technology you can build, create and go into new worlds and stories. Something that’s become possible more recently is to have multiple players and multiple viewers inside a movie watching it together.
“So rather than sit in a cinema and watch a flat screen, now you are in the movie and often times you have a role to play,” he says.
Once inside, shadowy, distorted figures appear across ash-flecked darkness. These ghoulish companions are your fellow real world spectators, with whom you share the experience. A ball of black flames wafts between you. Arms contorted, faceless, the figures linger and creep while you explore inside Orizuru Tower in Hiroshima, commonly known as the Atomic dome. The apocalyptic ambience was only disturbed when one of my companions gave me a comic slo-mo wave. However, horror is never far away – one conspirator crept up behind me in a most disconcerting manner, albeit to take a closer look at a warped, floating, stopped pocket watch, which forever tells the time that the bomb dropped and whose owner perished instantly.
The dome is a Unesco World Heritage site, which serves as a peace memorial to the thousands killed during and after the bomb. Arora points to the sense of moral responsibility this shared VR format brings to the phenomenon of the global arms race. “If you and I witness a calamity on the street, could either of us walk away from it?”
“Zikr, A Sufi Revival” directed by Gabo Arora, who built his career at the UN and has advocated for using new media for social impact. “In New York there’s that punk rock, intellectual, artistic spirit. We can make our money with other commercial things, but we live for this,” says Arora. “It’s more independent, less influenced by Hollywood.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/features/sundance-film-festival-and-the-rise-of-indie-vr-w516161 ( print, global)
At the Sundance Festival, virtual reality is being used for the first time for groups of people to share an experience of Sufism. Lauren Hutchinson talks to the director Gabo Arora about the experience of the documentary, called Zikr.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05vv8c0 ( radio feature, worldwide )
Compared with other 360-degree-video VR films, Zikr stands out by letting you participate a bit in what you're seeing, rather than just having you sit back and passively view it all.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/19/zikr-sufi-dancing/ ( online feature)
Zikr and Iñárritu’s Carne y Arena are showing the future of the medium.
https://www.wired.com/story/sundance-vr-crossroads/ ( online )
The deal, the first of its kind for a VR documentary in Park City, includes a funding component to support further development that will include an online version allowing multiple players (from around the globe) to be networked at once.
http://deadline.com/2018/01/zikr-a-surf-documentary-sundance-deal-dogwoof-1202273299/ ( online )
For the director, Gabo Arora, a renowned VR creator with projects such as Clouds over Sidra and The Last goodbye, the hope is that Zikr, with its unprecedented level of engagement and interactivity, will allow for a more meaningful connection to Islam that goes beyond empathy and tolerance.
http://www.indiewire.com/2018/02/vr-virtual-reality-social-sundance-1201924027/ ( online )
We used the chaos to clarify our senses and capture the true harmony and beauty that unfolded around us.
Documentary producer and theatrical distributor Dogwoof has acquired the VR film Zikr: A Sufi Revival from director Gabo Arora.
Arora was inspired to make “Zikr,” a “musical interactive VR documentary experience” after observing Sufi Muslim euphoric dance rituals helped shift his own deeply held prejudices about Islam.
“‘Zikr’ is a gem,” said Dogwoof founder Andy Whittaker in an official statement. “A profoundly moving VR experience, which will change people’s perspectives. We cannot wait to show it to international festivals, theaters, museums and art venues,” he continued, suggesting that it could connect with audiences on the same scale as two-time Best Director Oscar-winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s “Carne y Arena,” a VR exhibit on immigrants and refugees now on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
http://www.indiewire.com/2018/01/dogwoof-acquisitions-sundance-zikr-a-sufi-revival-1201922656/ ( online )
"ZIKR was deeply moving, extraordinarily vulnerable, and something I’ll not soon forget.”—Reel Spirituality, Andrew Neel
http://www.brehmcenter.com/initiatives/reelspirituality/film/reviews/zikr-a-sufi-revival
The most transcendental experience this year came via virtual reality documentary Zikr: A Sufi Revival. The film, which explores the nature of faith among followers of Sufism, the mystical Islamic tradition, is the first VR documentary sold at Sundance. The buyer, Dogwoof, plans to develop it into an online experience that will allow multiple players around the world to enter it simultaneously.
http://www.newsweek.com/2018/02/16/best-sundance-films-2018-801024.html ( print )
Back within the digital zikr, I was infected by Mohamed’s dance moves. The repetitive beat spread to my feet, then knees, then hips, shoulders, and head. I nearly forgot I was wearing a virtual reality headset. Only when a digital bundle of twigs appeared in my own hands and bursts into flame did I snap back to reality. When Zikr: A Sufi Revival came to a close, I only had a taste of the religious experience, but it was intoxicating. I, a lifelong "spiritual, but not religious" type was ready to sign up for one of New York City's many prayer shrines.
59k7b8/virtual-reality-zikr-sufi-islam-
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/reza-aslan-dancing-mystical-ritual ( online feature, video)
Zikr featured on Al Jazeera “The Stream” LIVE.
http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201803121243-0025602 ( TV, worldwide )
As far as the affect Zikr has on its participants, one may feel, at first, slightly inhibited, but that's not surprising given that this is a social situation involving strangers. Over time, however, the music and the movement—and yes, the beauty and the grace—take over and one's inhibitions begin to dissolve. I found one long scene shot on the roof of a Sufi shrine with a group of male worshippers to be particularly hypnotic. Because the VR camera is placed in the middle of the group, the fourth wall comes down; you are no longer just watching the group but are a part of it. The men's voices and movements become melded with your own. It is a startling and, perhaps, even transcendent experience, combining the best of what VR and documentary can do when in perfect sync with each other.
https://www.documentary.org/online-feature/documentary-vr-breaks-through-sundances-new-frontier ( online + print )