We've reached our crowdfunding goal! YAY! We are so grateful to all those who've helped to make this possible! But we also see that people keep donating and that's great, because the more money we get the more beautiful we can print the Reality Tickets, work on details, enhance the experience etc. etc., basically just make sure this will turn out to be as good as possible. Big Hug to you all.
All realities are real, but some are more real than others.
In the 19th century we filled in the last blank spots of our planet. No more Unknown Territories to discover. Our entire planet has been mapped and documented, and moreover by 2020 even the last remote spot on our planet might be connected to the Internet. Gone are the days of heroic adventures into the Unknown.
However, in recent years a new Unknown Territory suddenly appeared again on our planet: The World of Virtual Reality. We will embark on a Mission to explore this new world, and will do so in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada during the Burning Man Festival.![]()
A Turing Test for Reality
At Burning Man 2017 a small crew of artists will be locked up inside a black box for the entire week of the festival. They will never leave the box, and won't ever see what's happening outside.
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With their art they will create a virtual Burning Man on the inside walls without ever viewing the outside, just based on what visitors tell them. Through the duration of the festival, the inside walls of the construction will be continuously filled with the collaborative Crew /Visitors’ interpretation of the outside reality.
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The Visitors wear VR goggles, their bridge between reality and virtuality. But where does their reality end and virtuality begin? Is what they see ‘real’? And how will they know the difference?
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The entire project Is captured with a professional stereoscopic 360 rig and edited into an immersive VR experience of their mission at Burning Man.
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The resident Crew will stay inside the Monolith during the entire course of the event, but they will still have some form of outside presence: for each of the Crewmembers physical “Avatars” will be created. These avatars, outfitted with a mini-360-camera, will roam the Playa. They will be life-size photos mounted on wood, which will be carried around by Burners and can be interacted with in the desert. 2D and 360-degree pictures and clips taken with the Avatars will be send back to the Monolith. Their journey and experience becomes part of the overall story.
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Upon leaving visitors will receive a colorful beautifully printed entrance ticket - ‘Reality - Admit One’ - to the outside world/default Reality. The back of the entrance ticket will act as a kind of ‘terms and conditions’ featuring thoughts and insights on (Virtual) Reality.
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The departure for the mission and homecoming of our crew will both be special ritual moments. After all, Reality won’t be the same anymore after this transformative journey. What will be their perception of “real” reality after they land again?
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Philosophy
The actual definition of “reality” has been a universal question for ages. In today’s world with the current generation of Virtual Reality technology the definition of Reality is stretched even more, and boundaries between realities have become even more blurred.
Solipmission asks that old universal question again: “What is Reality?” With this project we explore this question with tools that previously belonged to the realm of science fiction. We are creating a bridge allowing visitors to cross over from science fiction into reality. But then again: How real is Reality?
Realizing the value(s) of both our human, real reality and digital, technological reality might enable a smoother transition into a future world, which will see a symbiosis of both.
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Physical description
The project will be located inside a 25 x 25 x 25 feet black box. A black monolith, adorned with the colorful Solipmission logo, with a small door beneath it.
Inside the box there will be an inner cylinder of 18 feet in diameter with 12 feet high walls and a smaller fenced off circle for the visitors, with a VR-camera installed in the centre of the construction. Visitors will enter and leave through a small ante chamber. The inside of the Monolith will be illuminated with both indirect natural light, as well as additional neutral lighting.
Personnel will wear special overalls with our logo. Room for storage, sleeping, portapotties etc will be placed between the outside walls of cylinder and the inner wall of the box.
In science a black box is an object, which can be viewed in terms of input/output interactions with no knowledge of its internal workings. In Islam the Kaa’bah, the most holy object, has the form of a black box. In Space Odyssey 2001 black monoliths trigger transitions in human evolution. It thus symbolically links the scientific, spiritual, and human project aspects.
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Past Burning Man Projects
In 2002 we built a big wooden threemaster in Amsterdam - the Fools Ark - which was shipped to the States, and then burnt in the desert.
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In 2003 one hundred and forty paper maché Greymen surrounded an altar in the desert. People could customize those Greymen during the week, and at the end of the event burn their own inner Greyman during 140 private rituals.
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In 2008 we protected the border between Dreams and Reality with the Department of Dreamland Security at Checkpoint Dreamyourtopia - a border control checkpoint to enter your own Dreams. A year later we tore down the walls between Dreams and Reality in an old swimming pool in Berlin with chainsaws and sledgehammers, exactly twenty years after the Berlin Wall fell.
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In 2011 people could sign a Spiritual Karma Laundering contract at the Exchanghibition Bank. That would bring their spiritual Karma debt back to Zero, and in return they'd get a Zero banknote.
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In 2012 the Exchanghibition Banknotes were hanging as leaves from the branches of the Transformoney Tree. People could draw and paint on real banknotes, turning their Money into Art, and then glue those banknotes onto the tree.
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In 2013 we guided people on their Spiritual Path to Enlikement with Like4Real.
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Epilogue
Reality still has more pixels than the screen of your iPhone. But even if in the future Virtual Reality will have more pixels than Reality itself, will that make VR more realistic than Reality?