VR PLAYHOUSE & CREATOR/DIRECTOR PETER FLAHERTY LAUNCH NARRATIVE VR EXPERIENCE ‘THE SURROGATE’
“Interactive VR Experience Channels ‘Black Mirror’ to Peer Into the Near Future of Tech-Induced Anxiety”
Los Angeles-based creative studio VR Playhouse teams with creator/director Peter Flaherty and Producer Logan Brown for the launch of “The Surrogate,” a timely, interactive VR experience that envisions the imminent impacts of technology on our closest interpersonal relationships.The narrative VR experience is a contemporary story–akin to ‘Black Mirror’–that is set in the near future, but reflects present cultural fears and afflictions of the digital age. “The Surrogate” fuses 360 video with a computer-generated explorable environment using an innovative technique called Immersive Hemispheres. Viewers are immersed in the consciousness of a female protagonist, whose point of view they control as they explore the hallways that snake behind the walls of a modern home she once shared with her husband.
Click HERE to view a trailer of “The Surrogate” and HERE to download the experience for free in the Oculus Store.
Set in a world rich with visual and sensory stimuli, Juliana Bach suffers from an anxiety disorder caused by a proliferation of augmented and virtual realities in her daily life. After struggling with the disorder and experimenting with various treatments, she decides to hire a “surrogate” to assume her physical presence. Viewers choose how to follow the narrative, navigating the passageways and peering into various rooms through the live-action portals that offer an immersive vantage point. The story builds to a dramatic conclusion in which both Juliana and the Surrogate face the potential sublimation of their identities–two halves of a nearly merged new whole.
“The Surrogate” has appeared at numerous festivals and was a SXSW Interactive Innovation Award Finalist.
Peter Flaherty is a director and interactive artist whose work has been shown in over 100 international venues, including theaters, art galleries and museums. “I wanted to take a different approach to how we are dealing with this kind of immersive technology as a storytelling tool by offering the viewer a story that combines cinematic live action with an interactive environment,” notes Flaherty. “The technology inspired me to tell a story that looks ahead to what our shared cultural future may hold in the coming years. I wanted to communicate how powerful this exciting new technology is, but how overwhelming it could be to live in a world proliferated with layered media.”
For additional images and background click HERE to view the EPK for “The Surrogate.”
About VR Playhouse
VR Playhouse is a Los Angeles-based creative studio and full-service production company specializing in virtual and augmented reality. With a fervent passion for transporting viewers through meaningful experiences in immersive media, founders Christina Heller and Ian Forester have amassed a specialized team with diverse backgrounds ranging from production to animation, journalism, VFX, theater and live events. From creative to production and distribution, VR Playhouse delivers complete projects through its cohesive VR pipeline.
Boasting a broad range of projects in the commercial, live sports, cinematic narrative and high-end real estate industries, VR Playhouse’s original VR content transports viewers into unexplored times and locations, allowing audiences to transcend their daily lives and experience new perspectives and emotions.
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For more information contact: Jenna Wigman @ Press Kitchen 617.966.0649
