Good morning everyone. My name is Tony Parisi, and I am the Head of VR and AR Strategy at Unity Technologies. Unity is proud to sponsor The Art of VR, and we’d like to say thanks to the VR Society for making this first-ever event of its kind a reality.

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I want to spend a few minutes talking about the next wave of interactive development: real-time 3D graphics. Real time 3D is the foundational technology for virtual, augmented and mixed reality. Real time 3D was pioneered by the game industry, but now it’s being used in experiences far beyond games: for cinema and interactive storytelling; for business applications in multiple industries; for education; and yes, for art.

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My company, Unity technologies, plays a central role in the development of VR and AR experiences. Just a quick by-the-numbers here: 38% of the top 1,000 free mobile games are Made With Unity; Unity mobile games triggered 5B app installs last quarter alone; across 2B unique devices. With VR and AR, around 58% of developers surveyed are Unity users, and over two thirds of all VR/AR content released through known channels is Made With Unity.

Add to this that over 80% of Vuforia AR applications, and 91% of all Hololens mixed reality is made with our software… you can see that Unity has become the Foundation of VR and AR development. We got here by focusing on making the world’s easiest and most accessible tools, the most flexible and powerful real-time engine, building on of the largest creative communities in the world, and making sure our creators can make money-- because when they succeed, we succeed.

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When it comes to art, Unity is being used to create some of the most amazing art the world has ever seen. Immersive technology— virtual, augmented and mixed reality—enables a whole new medium for creativity, expression and communication! I promise you, the art you are going to experience at this conference, and the points of view you’ll be hearing about from the speakers over these next two days are going to change the way you think about the arts.

Now, why is that? Why would VR and AR art be so different from other media? I think there are several reasons:

It’s Immersive - it’s all around you and you’re inside it, like the best live installation; and because the illusions VR and AR can create are so convincing, you’re present and in the moment;It’s Interactive - you’re not just seeing and hearing, you are participating;It’s Embodied - using new types of interaction with hand controllers, room-scale movement and haptic inputs, your entire body is engaged in the experience;It’s Alive - through animation and sound, we are experiencing not just space, shape and color, but time; and with code we can not just animate, but simulate;It’s Shared - and because it’s digital, this means it can be shared with anyone who has the hardware. This means we can do both one-of-a-kind installations, or downloadable experiences that anybody can be a part of, regardless of location.

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Immersive art is also blurring the lines between the physical and the digital.

Virtual reality can take us to different worlds, while augmented and mixed reality can let us see the world in different ways.

Now imagine that, through 3D photogrammetry scans and live video capture, we can bring the real world into VR by scanning objects, environments and people, both stills and video.

And imagine with augmented and mixed reality, we can bring digital creations to life within the real world, and maybe even 3D print those creations that hitherto existed only in the imagination of the artist.

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The possibilities are staggering. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine where we’ll be in five years… ten years. A century from now. Ok I know I’m going to sound like I’m straight out of a Woody Allen movie but I have to do it. I’m going there. I was looking for a quote to sum up where this could be going, and when you search for pithy quotes on media, you can’t help but run headlong into Marshall McLuhan. Of his many quotes on the subject I think this one resonates the most for me.

“The new media are not bridges between man and nature - they are nature...The new media are not ways of relating us to the old world; they are the real world and they reshape what remains of the old

world at will.”

I would now like to introduce a series of speakers and panels that will take us through the next hour or so, exploring these possibilities. First up, it’s my pleasure to invite to the stage Brent Bushnell, founder and CEO of Two Bit Circus.

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