[Researchers in Northern Ireland are using virtual reality to allow musicians with disabilities to compose and play music in virtual reality. See the original version of the BBC News story below for three different images and a 2:09 minute video report. For more information, visit the website of Drake Music NI, and listen to “Episode 17: Music, Accessibility and Artistic Research” of the Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) Voices podcast from May 2021 featuring researcher Damian Mills. –Matthew] The musicians with disabilities embracing virtual reality By Niall McCracken, BBC News NI November 1, 2023 “I used to play instruments all the…

[Joe Hunting, the creator of the documentary We Met in Virtual Reality, which was filmed in and is about people who use and form relationships in VRChat, is launching a production studio called Painted Clouds to tell more stories set in (and eventually experienced in) presence-evoking virtual reality. This story from Engadget includes the details and two videos, one a 2:31 minute message from Joe Hunting via his VR avatar and the other a trailer for his documentary (the videos are also available from YouTube here and here). For an extended interview with Hunting, listen to a 28:33 minute edition…

[This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking essay about the potential impacts of a variety of quickly evolving presence-evoking technologies on us as individuals and on society. It’s from Psychology Today’s The Digital Self blog. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: John Collins/Pixabay] The Illusion of the Modern Self Here’s how AI-generated images can craft a precarious synthetic reality. By John Nosta, an innovation theorist and founder of NostaLab Reviewed by Davia Sills October 20, 2023 In the wake of the technological revolution, where digitalization and large language models seem to permeate every aspect of our existence, a curious shift is taking shape—a new…

[A clever developer has created what looks like an effective presence illusion in which a mixed reality user feels like they’re petting a (virtual) cat. The details are in the short story from Mixed below, including the potential implications for more realistic and compelling virtual pets; the short video described and embedded in the original story is available on X/Twitter, and a second one is available there as well. In a related story, a recent article in Nature’s Scientific Reports titled “Phantom touch illusion, an unexpected phenomenological effect of tactile gating in the absence of tactile stimulation” includes this summary:…

[In the essay below, Daniel Orti, the Middle East Director of ACCIONA Cultura (“a cultural production firm that specializes in the creation and delivery of museums, events, and new media experiences”), describes the potential of presence-evoking immersive experiences to not only entertain but motivate and transform users in positive ways. He notes that in addition to the increasingly sophisticated technology that creates these experiences, to be fully successful they require a compelling narrative. See the original version of the essay in Construction Week for five more pictures. –Matthew] Digital immersive experiences are here to stay — if they can tell…

[In an important project led by the University of Chicago and funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an interdisciplinary team of researchers is attempting to restore a sense of normalcy to the lives of breast cancer patients who have a mastectomy. As this news release says, the “bionic breast” project follows the refinements being made to other prosthetics technologies to create a (presence) illusion of natural sensation and normal function: “The goal for such devices is to create prosthetic limbs that are fully ‘embodied,’ meaning they feel like a natural part of the body and produce the same…