I am wandering the streets of Covent Garden in London and find myself in front of the door of a rather large shop on the ground floor, whose minimalist windows give me no idea of ​​what is inside. The six futuristic posters that are hung from time to time remind me of some kind of video game store. At the same time, the logo sign does not remind me of anything. I’m very curious to see what’s going on there, so I decide to take a step into the unknown. Opening the heavy door, I notice that next to the name of the establishment are two letters, B and R, arranged as a degree indicator, which immediately make me understand. I ended up in a space where the main character is virtual reality (Virtual Reality).

In fact, I’m in a new generation cinema. Sandbox VR is a unique entertainment platform even by London standards, which has been operating here only for the first quarter. This is the first appearance of this hybrid species in Europe. Based in San Francisco, USA, the company’s first stores were opened in California, followed by several others in other states, then in Canada and Asia. Its founders, Andy Scanlon and Jake Wilmot-Stilwell, wanted to create something completely new and much more ambitious on all levels. While around the world, including Greece, there have been occasional business initiatives such as VR cafes where you can step in and play a virtual reality game, Sandbox VR is the first mass-produced example of a full-fledged social experience.

The main thing is that in order to get to the site, you must have booked an online ticket for the game you have chosen, at least from someone else. In our minds, we all have virtual reality as a solitary activity, but in Sandbox VR you experience it with your friends, relatives or colleagues. Groups of people are invited to the halls, and after the game is over, they have the opportunity to sit together on the sofas in the hall and see on the screens some of the most wonderful things they have done in the 3D universe. At the same time, they can drink cocktails of the Tony robot bartender. It’s still not perfect, but the truth is that I drank a lot worse in the Psiri area.

The innovation, apart from the social aspect, is that Sandbox VR has developed its own system, with state-of-the-art cameras, special sensors all over the body and haptic tools that make you literally feel like you are in the natural world. Wednesday. When an explosion occurs in front of you, you feel the vibrations of the shock wave throughout your body. However, the sound is surprisingly realistic. And glasses, and accessories for games of our own production, as well as impressions. For now, all six are adventures with titles like Deadwood Valley, Amber Sky 2088, and Curse of David Jones where you kill zombies or take on space travel. Their quality is reminiscent of films of the next era, able to impress even people who are not particularly into games that turn you into a killer. In Sandbox VR, you feel like you are really and normally interacting in an unprecedented world, knowing that you have your familiars with you. And without the nausea usually caused in such conditions. At this stage, people interested in a certain type of action are attracted, but another, different experience will soon follow, with content that appeals to more peaceful types. In a 3D version of Plato’s Cave, all aspects of human creativity will flourish.

With such an all-round experience, one begins to think that this could be the end of the traditional entertainment hall. The gradual decline of cinemas is largely due to the dominance of home streaming platforms such as Netflix and Disney. Virtual reality can provide a random frame, but it can also provoke a radical restructuring of spaces and patterns. If you have the opportunity to visit a place with friends or family and literally immerse yourself in the atmosphere of a movie together, why visit a classic cinema again? The two big advantages of the cinema, the big screen and excellent sound, as well as the social dimension of sharing experience with others, are no longer the exclusive privileges of the cinema.

The experiences offered will bring about a change in self-perception and cause “togetherness” to take on forms that we cannot imagine today.

At the same time, more and more funds are being invested in the production of virtual reality experiences. Sandbox VR has committed $37 million for the next phase of development, but that amount seems ludicrous compared to Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg’s $30 billion investment that once placed us all in the so-called Metaverse. Soon, many of those associated with the entertainment industry will have to face very difficult dilemmas of survival and future.

Virtual reality is expected to radically change all living events. Even the theatre. I went up with three other strangers to the 5th floor of the Onassis Foundation building and entered four different rooms to watch Suzanne Kennedy’s I AM (VR). The experience is a digital religious mystery that makes one wonder what the future of places of worship will be like after virtual reality. On this evocative journey, you explore the limits of incorporeal perception by communicating directly with the sacred. I AM (VR) is another great introduction to the amazing possibilities of the environment, reminding you of the role that sight and hearing play in our perception of things. Churches will find a very serious competitor here. In virtual reality, there is the same loss of self, the same feeling of loss in something greater. You can really get excited.

This forced loss of the body from the virtual reality experience will cause changes in the perception of ourselves and will force “together” to take on forms that we cannot even imagine today. When you can be in the front row of a concert, sitting on your couch, when you can literally take the microphone next to your favorite artist, when you can chat live with other attendees, then the experience of art will be something special. very different from what we have known so far. We see this already happening in the visual arts, with virtual reality and augmented reality (AR) applications taking us to large museums and entire exhibitions in a virtual environment.

At the same time, dance performances help their viewers to be transferred to the digital world, to participate in role-playing action. The more technology advances, the more creative applications it will offer as long as the technical hurdles delaying the mass adoption of VR, the first and most intractable question about the devices with which someone “enters” the virtual environment, are overcome. . At the moment, there are many companies that are actively engaged in the manufacture of such devices. Meta makes the most amazing eyeglasses on the market, below cost in fact, and Apple will be introducing their version soon.