(July 29, 2016 – Montréal, Québec) This city’s Phi Centre is taking its Virtual Reality Garden on the road. It isn’t an especially long trip. It’s sort of a hop, skip and jump from Saint-Pierre Street to Parc Jean-Drapeau, but it’s a great leap in expanding the reach of Virtual Realty.
This pop-up Virtual Reality Garden will exist from July 29 to 31 as an installation within the 11th edition of festival Osheaga Musique et Arts. Housed in the festival’s VIP space, many lucky festival-goers will have the opportunity to try four virtual reality experiences.
SK8·360·VR by Occupied VR is a virtual reality skate park trip, while Graffiti VR, also by Occupied VR, brings you into the creation of works by four Toronto graffiti artists. Jurassic World: Apatosaurus (pictured above) is by Felix & Paul Studios and Universal Studios and is a moment of awe, beauty and danger in close proximity to a living dinosaur. Finally, Tilt Brush by Google is an interactive experience that invites viewers to choose from a selection of virtual environments upon which to then paint in 3D.
This isn’t the first time the Virtual Reality Garden has travelled. Unveiled at the beginning of this year, the Virtual Reality Garden was a first for the Montreal cultural scene: the creation of a free permanent installation dedicated to virtual reality, with content updated regularly. Phi also conceived, curated and designed a Virtual Reality Garden at the Québec Créatif Pavilion at the Cannes Film Festival and at Canada House in London, which is enjoying great success. The Virtual Reality Garden’s latest programming is presented in collaboration with the New York Times.
In addition to the Virtual Reality Garden, Phi’s current exhibition, Embodied Narrative: Sensory Stories of the Digital Age is curated by Future of StoryTelling and produced in partnership with Phi and continues until August 21). The Phi Centre, an initiative of Phi and its founder, Phoebe Greenberg, is a leader in disseminating virtual reality works to Montreal audiences.
