I spent five full days over New Year\’s playing with an HTC Vive. Which is interesting in NYC apartment, since half the furniture had to be moved to make room for the motion tracking units mounted on two spindly tripods! As an artist as well as a tech enthusiast, it was an interesting experience. So much to try out.

I have a book\’s worth of impressions and opinions coming out of the experience, but quickly – my favorite: hands down, Blortasia by Kevin Mack, a neuroscientist and artist. It\’s a psychedelic drift through an ever changing, pulsing, organic color blitz. Absolutely, mind bogglingly, surreally, beautiful. I love that he\’s not adapting something to fit into VR, he\’s actually designing something for the medium; one of the few, I think, who \”gets\” it.

His work is inspired by transcendent visions, nature, and technology, and is informed by research in a wide range of fields from neuroscience to artificial life. Not to mention, I\’m guessing it\’s a lot like taking mushrooms! Blortasia is being used in therapy and it\’s effects are the subject of a medical research study. Now *that\’s* a use for VR I can get behind.

The other favorite was (of course – as an artist): Tiltbrush. But I wasn\’t as in love with it as I should have been….it\’s purely a paint stroke program (I called it \”the MS Paint of VR\”) and I really missed being able to create actual solid objects. Perhaps a hangover from my CAD roots – nevertheless, I persisted, and determined to grok the program as best possible, after a while realized how to get the most out of it (hint: don\’t try to be precise).

Here\’s a glimpse of one of the worlds I created – a flock of beautiful glowing birds. I made another with huge pulsating jellyfish hanging from the sky, so you could stand in between the tentacles; that one\’s for another day.

That book-length blog post is coming, about everything from the experience to the content, user interface to opportunities – just wanted to jot down some initial thoughts to start.