VR Salon

Vancouver’s Boca del Lupo is excited to present two innovative and award winning Virtual Reality and 360 immersive experiences for their 2023 VR Salon. THE MAN WHO COULDN’T LEAVE is about political dissidents imprisoned in Taiwan, and winner of the Venice Immersive Best Experience Award at the Venice Biennale 2022. Narrated by Academy Award-winning actress Tilda Swinton, GOLIATH is an animated virtual reality experience about schizophrenia, gaming and connection. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best VR Immersive Work at the Venice International Film Festival (2021). The two works in this year’s VR Salon are part of Boca del Lupo’s LivePerformance360 series, an exploration of the intersection of contemporary performance and immersive technology with VR work from around the world. GOLIATH (UK, France) Directed by Barry Gene Murphy and May Abdalla. 25 mins “The Universe is revolving around me in a bad way.” Through mind-bending animation, award-winning GOLIATH: PLAYING WITH REALITY explores the limits of reality in this true story of so-called ‘schizophrenia’ and the power of gaming communities. Echo (narrated by Academy Award-winning actress Tilda Swinton) guides you through the many realities of Goliath, a man who spent years isolated in psychiatric institutions but finds connection in multiplayer games. Combining heart-felt dialogue, mesmerizing visuals and symbolic interactions, weave through multiple worlds to uncover Goliath’s poignant story. Created by Anagram, the team that brought you The Collider and Door into the Dark. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best VR Immersive Work at the 78th Venice International Film Festival (2021), and nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy Award in the Outstanding Interactive Media Innovation category (2022). THE MAN WHO COULDN’T LEAVE (Taiwan) Directed by Singing Chen. 35 mins. Within the walls of the former Green Island prison, political detainee A-Kuen, tells the stories of imprisonment and persecution that happened in the 1950s in Taiwan. Among fellow inmates, frozen in time, he recounts his own experiences and those of his friend, A-Ching, who never made it out. Experience the time and place, and the waiting, in hope, for a chance to keep the stories alive. The background to The Man Who Couldn’t Leave derives from documents recounting the experiences of political dissidents imprisoned on Green Island during the White Terror of the 1950s in Taiwan. It is narrated from the perspective of four symbolic characters: A-Kuen, who recalls with regret his friend A-Ching—the man who couldn’t leave. There is also A-Ching’s wife, who held the secret of her husband’s incarceration for many years, and A-Ching’s daughter, who now inherits that story and is determined to keep it alive. It also lets its audience feel the suffering and hopes of these people and conveys their desires for a better society; hopes that transcend history as universal values pursued by identity groups and new generations. In the end, it is only if stories are constantly told and the ideals and sacrifices of earlier generations are remembered, can the dead souls rest in peace and the spirit of an ideal society can be continued from generation to generation. Winner of the Kaohsiung XR Dreamland 2022-VR 360 Award, and Venice Immersive 2022-Best Experience at the Venice Biennale. LivePerformance360 Boca del Lupo’s series, LivePerformance360 is curated by Sherry J Yoon, Artistic Director at Boca del Lupo. The series takes a look at the most exciting artistic experiments in Canada and from around the world using immersive technologies that are connected to live performance.