Virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality, total immersion in virtual worlds and superimposing data onto our reality—for several years now, everybody’s been talking up these concepts and ideas once again.

The enthusiasm that accompanied the dawn of this new high-tech age in the 1980s and ’90s is back, whereby the technology deployed in today’s data glasses (head-mounted displays) seems to finally be able to live up to the visions that preceded it. VR, AR and MR have become a playground of multifarious pursuits: the gaming sector and film industry, applications in the educational field and tourism market, works of art and architecture, the creative economy, performance and the theater.

The VRLab in the Ars Electronica Center’s Main Gallery showcases the latest VR, AR and MR technologies. In addition to applications by filmmakers and animators as well as artistic approaches, the VRLab relates the history of virtual and augmented reality’s development. What did 18th-century spatial illusions look like, how did we progress from the stereoscope to the Oculus Rift, and in which directions will VR and AR be advancing in days to come? The VRLab provides insights into these questions.

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Mixed Reality with Microsoft HoloLens

Microsoft HoloLens is a mixed reality headset that blends the digital world into the real one. Digital contents appear like holograms amidst a real-world setting.

HYPER-REALITY

HYPER-REALITY is a concept film, presenting a provocative and kaleidoscopic new vision of the future, where physical and virtual realities have merged, and the city is saturated in media.

LOGIN

This installation invites visitors to physically experience the login process, which normally isn’t visible. The transition from physical to digital states is manifested by an experience in which the perception of one’s body melds with its representation in the form of data.

MasterWorks

In this virtual reality application, you travel to various historically significant locations around the world and discover the fate of the ancient capital of Thailand, the mysteries of a pre-Incan temple in the Peruvian Andes, the astonishing Native American cliff dwellings of Colorado and the monumental stone carvings of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.

Project INEO

INEO is a virtual reality experience designed especially with the interests and needs of non-tech-savvy seniors in mind. The whole experience—beginning with the choice of scenery—was developed in cooperation with members of the Pensioners Club of the City of Vienna.

The House of Medusa

In 2000, fragments of Roman mural paintings were discovered and recovered during an archaeological emergency excavation prior to the construction of a car park in Enns. Enter the virtual house of Medusa in this VR application.

The Lacuna Shifts

Alice in Wonderland inspired the artists’ collective named DEPART to create this Virtual Reality application that immerses users into a world behind the looking glass in which nothing is the way it seems.

Virtual Reality with Vive and Oculus Rift

Vive, one of the first commercially available Virtual Reality systems, has made quite a name for itself among a variety of solutions that have recently hit the market. It enables users to experience games and other digital content as if you were right inside them. Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset that was developed by Oculus VR and has been on the market since early 2016.