Kent Bye (Voices of VR)

Starheart's first album is out now! fallingstarheart.bandcamp.com/album/wonder... I met her via Raindance Immersive making music videos for her songs. She's got a pretty fascinating backstory of finding her authentic voice in VRChat. My convo with her from 2024: voicesofvr.com/1400-becomin...

Participated in a #BasisLoadTest @basisvr.org, which is an open source, social VR framework that got 200+ people and 1630 people + bots into a single instance. Self/hosted instances make it feel like the early days of the Internet & what High Fidelity aspired to do but with VRChat culture to do it.

Raindance Immersive curates the absolute best of virtual culture in VRChat. I’ve been a judge every year since 2020, and participated in this documentary coming out on August 9th. Excited to see this recap by @madamekana.bsky.social, the most prolific documentary maker in VRChat doing amazing work.

I just posted a pretty epic video on "Blending the Elements of Experiential Design. I'll be applying it to my 30+ hrs of oral history coverage of immersive stories from Venice Immersive 2025 & 15+ hrs of SXSW Immersive 2026 coming soon: youtu.be/01M5NcOYzx0 Slides: voicesofvr.com/wp-content/u...

I participated on a Socratic Debate about AI at Augmented World Expo where I represented an Anti-AI & Pro-Human Rights POV. I was called an "AI Denialist," which catalyzed me to collect 30k words citing critical AI scholars & philosophers presenting the skeptical take: voicesofvr.com/1749-socrati...

In 2022, I shelved my thesis VR game, Penrose Station, when I joined Twisted Pixel to work on Marvel's Deadpool VR (too much of a conflict of interest.) Fast forward to 2026: Meta shut our studio down. 😔 And with the conflict gone, I finally had a reason to pick it back up….

I’m loving the “chaotic early WWW energy” here that the #ATproto represents. I skipped to the demos to see the wide range of decentralized apps that these savvy devs were able to assemble after a 4-hour @codetv.dev Web Dev Challenge. Lots of Wild West Experimentation Vibes. youtu.be/S-XytKfGCO8?...

We apologize. :[

I'm presenting new material at Seattle XR: "Blending the Elements of Experiential Design" XR is an interdisciplinary design discipline that's fusing together architecture, industrial design, theater, film, music, game design, web design, human computer interaction, social media... luma.com/n8vhi1ue

One of the paradoxes of the next paradigm shift is valuing human experience & emotion beyond rational facts that don’t change behaviors on their own. It’s a rejection of an objectified “view from nowhere” absent situated knowledges that come from a body, feelings, mind, & will. youtu.be/z-XNH4upTVw

4 new Voices of VR eps: Immersive Impact Review, Impulse Impact Study, Patterns of Meaning, Transformation & Impact Open call from Agog on Climate Futures + Immersive Media voicesofvr.com/1720-immersi... voicesofvr.com/1721-impact-... voicesofvr.com/1722-meaning... voicesofvr.com/1723-agogs-o...

This was an incredibly touching and informative conversation. Certainly if you are in the AR/VR space I encourage you to listen. But even if you are an entrepreneur or an aspiring entrepreneur, you should check it out. The story of Rec Room as a business is fascinating all by itself.

Gamer's Nexus details how NVIDIA is abandoning the PC: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUqQ... This March 3, 2026 from /r/pcmasterrace foreshadows how Big Tech are abandoning personal computing in favor of AI data centers. They're pushing "you will own nothing and be happy." www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterra...

RIP Rec Room. 2016-2026. A bit of a shame to see another UGC-driven social VR app shut down. Export tools were recently provided to makers, but hoping to see more open source / open standards in XR in the future. My chat with Shawn Whiting reflecting on what happened: voicesofvr.com/1719-rip-rec...

I have a ton of respect for @antonhand.bsky.social as an indie artist who's been updating his game for 10+ years. H3VR is the most sophisticated gun simulator, and he hasn't enabled users to shoot other humans. He uses absurdist humor & play to open minds to new ideas. voicesofvr.com/1717-h3vr-10...

There's some REALLY cool things happening with the Creative Industries Immersive Impact Coalition. The CIIIC’s €200 Million in public funding is catalyzing all sorts of immersive innovations, including artist-driven research into revitalizing civic society. Hear more: voicesofvr.com/1713-ciiics-...

Great @edzitron.com interview breaking down the economic infeasibilities of VC-funded #AIHype. He says the all-you-can-eat buffet style of AI subscriptions are burning cash at an unsustainable rate, and doubts consumers will pay for the amount tokens they actually use www.youtube.com/watch?v=zECy...

I still sometimes call posts “skeets” here to invoke the nostalgia of three years ago when it was born out of a reply-all Hellthread where folks were posting nudes and crashing @pfrazee.com’s timeline, @jaketapper.bsky.social said “skeet” on CNN, & the @washingtonpost.com posted a meme about skeets.

Here's some of my favorite @xoxofest.com over the years. They just launched a rad video archive: @molly.wiki 2024 xoxofest.com/2024/videos/... Nicky Case 2015 xoxofest.com/2015/videos/... @contrapoints.bsky.social 2018 xoxofest.com/2018/videos/... Dooce (RIP) 2015: xoxofest.com/2015/videos/...

What’s next for immersive, AI, and interactive art? @kentbye.com reports on the 19th edition of the @doclab.bsky.social festival. Free download #xr #immersive

Reading this report right now and encouraging anyone interested in the arts to do the same.

What’s next for immersive art? This 121-page report I wrote attempts to answer this by listening to what immersive artists have to say. The IDFA DocLab Immersive Think Tank Report is out now, & it's a roadmap to a community-driven, indie XR distribution network. professionals.idfa.nl/stories/idfa...

My mood as I roll into Austin for #SXSW.

Here is my sneak preview of the #SXSW XR Experience programmer with curator Blake Kammerdiener. We talk about every project in competition and the spotlight as well. I’ll be on site seeing all of the things and recording oral history interviews with immersive artists. voicesofvr.com/1712-preview...

That was a great manifesto / philosophy of tech rant mixed with a lot of pithy writing, stylized glitch art, & raw emotion. Love the quote "technology is a branch of moral philosophy, not of science." from Paul Goodman's "New Reformation" (1969) via Neil Postman's "Technopoly" (1992).

Contrary to what you heard, VR is actually NOT dead. VR Forever is coming back after a successful first edition and submissions are open now: forms.gle/fvU8BhqVPYfo... Submission Deadline: March 31st #VRForever is hosted by @creaturedotpage.bsky.social and @futurefriendsgames.com #VR #gamdev

OpenAI’s legal agreement already enables an AI Big Brother. They say “any handling of private information will comply with the Fourth Amendment,” but fail to mention the Third Party Doctrine, where there’a “no legitimate ‘expectation of privacy’” for data given to them. openai.com/index/our-ag...

As the corporate media continues to be consolidated by billionaires, then it's vital to look to independent coverage from folks like @marcelias.bsky.social & @democracydocket.com protecting election integrity & calling out voter suppression tactics. An important watch www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGqB...

The presumption of regularity at the SotU is was so uncanny. See the thread from @anatosaurus.bsky.social for some great context. It also reminded me of Barthes and what happens when rules-based boxers go up against wrestlers and the logic of spectacle. archive.thinkprogress.org/this-french-...