Heart VR

12 - 24 March 2021

Heart VR began as open-ended research into the performative potentials of Virtual Reality. Arena undertook this research in partnership with the ‘Creative Convergence’ ARC project being run by Melbourne University. During 2020 we elevated Heart to become a public project in development, thanks to a special funding round from the Australia Council. We premiered Heart VR in the Bendigo Pride Festival in February 2021.

Creative Technologist Lachlan Sleight joined Christian Leavesley, Jolyon James, Darius Kedros and Paris Balla to develop the concept into a public performance. James Bodin joined the team as the performer.

Heart VR is an exploration of who we truly are, ‘at heart.’ The piece joins with a series of works that Arena has done over recent years that is concerned with how we achieve self-definition. Together, they explore self-definition as a way to build confidence, pride and empowerment.

One of the challenges of developing the piece was to find a way that the strengths of Virtual Reality could be married to the strengths of live performance. The way we approached this challenge was to present the first half of the piece as a solo performance, and the second half as a multi-person VR experience. Each performance could accommodate 6 performers.

We used the solo performance to define the imaginative world and the ‘central question of the piece’ for the audience. We then took the audience to places in VR – versions of The Engine Room Theatre, The Harcourt Oak Forest, the sky above us – to encourage the audience to explore the imaginative world, and find their own answers to the central question of who they are at heart.

Each performance was followed by an informal de-brief with each other and some of the artists to share their experiences, and what they had discovered.