TIFFxPOP features high-end VR experiences from around the world

By Sonya Davidson

This summer TIFF brings virtual reality experience in a series of pop-up installations. Part 2 opens July 15 to 17, 2016 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto. Titled POP 02: VR + Empathy + Real-World Storytelling is all about real-life storytelling. Experiences are through the eyes of someone else and seeing things from another person's perspective. Installations offer human emotional connections along side technology. A look at how virtual reality meets real life. 

Highlights in this exhibition include:

6x9: An immersive Experience of Solitary Confinement that invites you to experience what it's like to spend 23 hours a day in a US solitary confinement prison cell through Samsung Gear VR.

Never Forget: An Architecture of Memory allows you to immerse yourself in the memories of others. Wander through 28 rooms that recall the memories of a 93 year old woman leading up to and during World War II in the Netherlands with Oculus. 

The Lovely Room takes augmented reality technology and sleuthing skills found in popular escape rooms as visitors enter an abandoned underwater study of the late 19th century mathematician and programmer Ada Lovelace. Search for glyphs using provided tablets to discover information riddled around the space. 

Virtual Strangers allows two complete strangers from different locations anywhere in the world to come together in a shared virtual space. 

Henry is an Oculus Story Studio piece that was developed with the former creative talent on Brave and Toy Story 3. This story-driven VR experience takes visitors on an adventure with a little hedgehog who ends up all alone on his birthday and makes a wish that changes everything. 

Strap on Samsung's VR gear and immerse yourself into short films like the History of Cuban Dance by Lucy Walker that places you in the centre of various dance expressions (if no one was around I would have definitely got up and danced along with them). 

Many more installations are here to explore. For more information visit tiff.net/pop