Blackout uses new media to create a space of radical listening.

Blackout | VR Documentary
13 mins, premiered at Tribeca Storyscapes 2017

Blackout is a generative virtual reality documentary set on the New York City subway. The accompanying installation featured two VR headsets within a physical structure matching a subway car's shape, with real poles and benches. The viewer puts on a headset and boards a NYC subway train. They can walk around, lean against poles, sit next to virtual passengers. When the train leaves the station, they discover they can hear the thoughts of the passengers. The narrative is determined by they you approach and look at, and the longer they listen, the deeper you delve into their stories. Every experience is unique as an algorithm selects different passengers with similarly tagged stories.

The participatory and non-linear story combines 3D scanned people and documentary interviews with over 40 New Yorkers from all walks of life. Their portraits were captured using cameras and depth sensors using a custom-built volumetric filmmaking approach that has since been adopted by companies including Intel and Microsoft. Blackout is considered to be the first full volumetric documentary.

---

Blackout premiered in competition at Tribeca Storyscapes in 2017, and was supported by Cinereach, Tribeca New Media Fund, and the Knight Foundation.

Press
Routledge | Crafting Stories for Virtual Reality
Engadget | 'Blackout' is a VR love letter to NYC's subway riders 
Fast Company | These Filmmakers Are Immortalizing New Yorkers
BBC | Virtual reality: The hype, the problems and the promise