James R. Eads is an artist who uses technology to create new and unique masterpieces. He works heavily with animation and VR, and advertises his works through social media. I first came across him on the “Explore” page on Instagram, and was amazed with the beautiful works he creates through the use of new technologies (to see him “painting” in action, watch the video link above – is it truly amazing).
Eads is a popular animator of music videos and occasionally provides special effects for shows and movies. His work depicts abstract renditions of popular tv shows, films, other historical artwork, and current events. In addition, he does a lot of his own work from scratch, creating etherial and other-worldly scenes that people used to say reminded them of outer space. That is when Eads got the idea to work with a new medium: virtual reality.
Perhaps Eads’s most influential (or soon to be influential) work is what he does in VR. He wanted to be able to put users inside of the art and take them inside of the artwork itself. His device, called the tiltbrush, allows him to draw in the air and see his brush strokes through a VR headset. The work that he does combines traditional art styles with modern technology, and it is incredible.
Another of his works, which he entitled “Twenty Eight Days of Portals” can be seen below. This piece was meant to take viewers on a trip through a miniature universe that he designed.
Another, titled “The Darkest Hour” can be seen here.
I saw some of these videos a couple weeks ago and I was so blown away. Virtual reality is one of the coolest things I’ve seen come around in a while. My uncle has an HTC Vive and I was at his house where he let me take it for a ride. I was pretty skeptical at first because I had seen a couple of videos about VR games and they didn’t look very graphically impressive, and there wasn’t much content (this was also a couple years ago before things like Doom VR and Fallout 4 VR which are both really cool experiences and have good graphics etc etc.). However, as soon as I started playing, I could see why people were so excited about VR. What people who have never tried it, like myself at the time, don’t understand is that it doesn’t even matter how good what you’re playing is because once you’re in the game, it’s like total immersion. You could be doing absolutely nothing and it would still be the coolest thing you’ve ever seen because it feel like you are in an entirely new world.
I think that VR has the potential to be absolutely massive in terms of popularity and whatnot. Right now though there are a couple problems that get in the way of it I think. It’s really expensive to get into (HTC vive is like $500) and it is pretty expensive to get a computer that can actually run a full on VR game well enough. It also struggles right now because while developers can see that it could be really amazing, no one wants to gamble on a fully fleshed out VR experience and have it fail due to the issues of inaccessibility etc.
Anyway, VR is cool and I love talking about it lol. The article below explains some of the obstacles to VR if any one is curious.
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/virtual-reality-still-5-big-problems-overcome/
I’ve witnessed virtual reality games and applications that are so visually appealing that there doesn’t need to be any sort of objective. They are doing things such as this, and making games where you just paint or you just fly around and look over the world. I know in some cases, they are often intended to be therapeutic. There was one company, that my cousin is trying to work for, that made one called “Flower” where you just gather petals from flowers and keep growing while it plays soothing music into your ears. The goal of this game is just to take your mind away from the stress of the world, and the ambient max is to relax you. While the therapeutic aspect doesn’t really appeal to me, I am very interested in the artsy applications that they are finding for VR. I am curious to see what other functions they can find for such a new technology. Here’s an article about VR therapy in a visually stunning game. https://itsyourturnblog.com/deep-vr-a-stunning-virtual-reality-game-for-anxiety-and-depression-pt-5-16801d6830c9
I’m also extremely interested by this field of tech and wondering how many different applications it could apply to. When looking at some of Ead’s work i can really see how much more creative space and power you are given by this virtual space. This leads me to think how much more can we do with this technology in the future? For example could we use this in hospital settings for those whose mobility are disabled? Or maybe in a business setting we could use this technology to further show case presentations in ways unimaginable? Regardless of the direction of this technology Im sure it will play an integral part of the tech scene in the near future. In my opinion this technology is underestimated and underfunded and definitely needs more attention because I believe it has the power to help to solve a ton of different issues from perspectives we havent yet considered.
https://vrtodaymagazine.com/medical-virtual-reality/