Nightsss – a sensual VR experience of poetry, dance and nature  

VR piece Nightsss is a virtual erotic poem. A few minutes of artistic animation with ASMR and interactive elements immerses the viewer in the sensual experience of poetry and dance. Nightsss’s script was based on a piece of the spoken word poet Weronika Lewandowska. The artist uses sounds characteristic of the Polish language, creating onomatopoeic landscapes that cross language barriers. The spatially composed poet’s voice takes the immersant to a virtual night environment in which one meets a dancing character. The dancer’s organic movements blend with her virtual body. 

The character is once a poem and loses its materiality, and in a moment splits into other forms. Other times – it condenses so that hundreds of drops can illuminate the flora and bring out the color from the night scenery. Still another time – it takes on a human form that “passes” through the body of the immersant, and then disintegrates into particles of fluidized substance with unreal behavior. The night pulsates with a rhythmic space of sounds and movements, it is looped in words. Immersant sees his/her hands in the created world which serves as an anchor, allowing for small interactions. 

The creators have used the potential of combining different qualities that can be applied to virtual space – generative forms that have organic movement, and organic forms that exceed the limits of predictable motorics, gravity and matter (just like imaginary objects). Nightsss integrates many sensual experiences with metaphor and language game – thus playing with the perception of the immersant and constructing a synesthesia environment. Dance and choreography in a transmedia spirit transform the poem, exploring its new dimensions. The character “dances” the poem, but also builds up new meanings to it. The relationship between the immersant, the poem, interactive sound space, dynamically changing image, movement of the character and objects of the night – creates a unique experience. 

Rhythmic transformation ends in a daytime environment that brings meditative space for reflection on one’s body and movement in virtual space. After many transformations we can stand for a moment in front of the large virtual Sun and absorb its heat, resonating not only in our virtual body. 

Nightsss explores the possibilities of VR storytelling and dance in the context of the changing perception of technologically created spatial experiences and the development of the kinetic empathy of the immersant in the embodied experience of virtual space. The animation was made in 6 DOF on Oculus Rift S as part of vnLab projects at the Film School in Łódź.