MICHAEL BARNGROVER and XR CROWD COMMUNITY, XR ART RESIDENCE, RAPTOR DANCE STUDIOS, EUROMERSIVE
“Flying Into The Metaverse Through Books & Culture” today welcomes MICHAEL BARNGROVER. During the LAVAL VIRTUAL Europe 2022 event we met Micheal Barngrover who gave us this beautiful interview in which he talks about what he is doing in the XR sector.
He’s a researcher and developer of XR and a leader in the Turkish XR community. He’s the founder and lead developer of his own creative XR studios, Raptor Dance Studios, founder of the Turkish chapter of Euromersive, and formerly the coordinator of Koç University’s XR lab, where he is a PhD student of collaborative VR design. But he is perhaps best known internationally as the coordinator of the #ZeroEvents for the XR Crowd.
XR CROWD COMMUNITY
I was following what Micheal was doing since 2020, when in full pandemic, he along with many other European XR professionals, the XR Crowd Community, came together to launch a series of explorations and tests of various virtual social platforms, from Virbela to Engage and Glue. The series, entitled #ZeroEvent, supported the organizers of several major festivals in 2020 in virtualizing their events under very challenging circumstances, beginning with Laval Virtual in 2020. Using Virbela, LAVAL Virtual World successfully catapulted users from around the world into a beautiful, shared virtual experience when they were otherwise stuck in their homes.
“The team received support from the international XR Crowd community as a part of its #EmbraceOnlineXR initiative. They helped testing and comparing about twenty virtual platforms before choosing the solution proposed by VirBELA, which responded to the expressed wishes: to offer an event accessible to all through an easy-to-use tool that allows interaction.”
You can read the article HERE.
Micheal has continued to run #ZeroEvents even after the pandemic lockdowns were lifted and the questions the XR Crowd community were asking changed. Recently, he has been hosting fireside chats in the Engage platform, in which other industry experts join him for in depth and wide-ranging discussions of issues affecting the XR industry. In addition to hosting industry events for the XR Crowd, he’s begun organizing events in support of XRMust.com and Euromersive Turkiye, for whom he is the founder and leader.
Increasingly, Michael’s community building efforts have focused on connecting Turkish XR professionals with European peers and opportunities. Having lived in Türkiye for over a decade and become a dual citizen, he frequently assumes a responsibility to promote the country’s talented developers and designers.
THE INTERVIEW
Find the video interview below and the highlights and questions I asked Micheal Barngrover below.
Found below the key points:
0:00:00 – Opening Theme
0:00:08 – CECILIA LASCIALFARI: “Opening the interview”
0:00:16 – MICHAEL BARNGROVER: “Welcome”
0:00:17 – CECILIA LASCIALFARI: “Welcome”
0:00:19 – MICHAEL BARNGROVER: “Who I am?”
0:00:29 – CECILIA LASCIALFARI: Michael, you are a multidisciplinary XR researcher, devèloper, and consultant with a wide-ranging knowledge of enterprise and creative VR, and are particularly focused on multi-user VR platforms and cultural heritage applications of XR. Briefly tell us about your experience with Zero Events. How was it born, how did it develop and what are your plans for the future?
0:01:08 – MICHAEL BARNGROVER answered
0:04:03 – CECILIA LASCIALFARI: You are a leader within the XR Crowd, an international community of XR professionals, and a founding member of Euromersive. Both associations promote knowledge sharing and collaboration among XR professionals on the European continent and beyond. How was it born, how did it develop and what are your plans for the future?
0:04:30 – MICHAEL BARNGROVER answered
0:06:31 – CECILIA LASCIALFARI: What do you think of the Metaverse? Can you make some predictions for the future?
0:06:37 – MICHAEL BARNGROVER: answered
0:09:41 – CECILIA LASCIALFARI: Are you working on any research in particular? Tell me about your plans for the future… I want to know all the secrets you haven’t told anyone yet!
0:09:52 – MICHAEL BARNGROVER: answered
0:12:07 – CECILIA LASCIALFARI: “Thank you Micheal Barngrover”
0:12:09 – MICHAEL BARNGROVER: “Thank you”
0:12:10 – CECILIA LASCIALFARI “Who I am?”
0:12:30 – Closing Theme – “Become sponsor of the “Flying Into The Metaverse Through Books & Culture”
MICHEAL BARNGROVER XR RESEARCH
XR ART RESIDENCY
With family roots that involve various parts of the world, from Asia to America, passing through Türkiye, Micheal is working right now on the realization of a very interesting project, an XR Art Residency.
But let’s read his words of presentation of the project, of which you can find the link below.
I’m finally hosting my first #xr #artresidency program, together with Hatice Öz Pektaş of İstinye Üniversitesi and Ali Kerem Bilge of BASE. We are currently accepting applications from artists, developers, and creative technologies in Istanbul.
Aptly entitled the Istanbul XR Art Residency, from 1 to 12 August, residents will be working to create original works of #ar and #vr#art. I was inspired by Alejandro Martín‘s IMMENSIVA program at the Espronceda – Institute of Art and Culture and my experiences with the European immersive art and film festivals.
It’s been a years-long goal of mine to support creatives in Turkey to develop and gain recognition international for their XR art. The lockdowns disrupted the progress I had been making through my work at Koç University, but now I’m fortunate to call upon international friends and colleagues, like XR art curator Julie Walsh, Alejandro, and Isabel De Peuter-Rutten. They’ll join local mentors and XR creatives İrem Coban, Aylin Taslak, Lance Powell, and Selen Lun 🌈 from Euromersive Türkiye to support our selected artists with advice and expertise.
The completed projects will be featured in an exhibition to take place in October of this year.
You can fill out the form to participate by connecting to this link: Istanbul XR Art Residency
MICHAEL BARNGROVER on MEDIUM
Michael Barngrover has his own column on Medium, where he writes very interesting articles based on research and in-depth studies. You can follow it by connecting to this link: MICHEAL BARNGROVER
MICHAEL BARNGROVER on LinkedIN
I’m a multidisciplinary XR researcher, developer, and consultant with a wide-ranging knowledge of enterprise and creative VR, and is particularly focused on multiuser VR platforms and cultural applications of XR. I contribute to international projects as well as create VR and AR applications for clients that have included multinational companies, cultural institutions, universities, and artists.
I am a leader within the #XRCrowd, an international community of XR professionals, and a founding member of Euromersive. Both associations promote knowledge sharing and collaboration among XR professionals on the European continent and beyond. My thought leadership contributions include keynote talks, presentations, and workshops at conferences, such as Stereopsia, Laval Virtual, VR Days Europe, Munich Medientage, and for institutions such as the Association of Museum Curators and the MEET Digital Culture Center.
I am also a member of the XR Crowd, for whom I also organize the ZeroEvents, a series of weekly explorations of multiuser virtual platforms. The XR Crowd is a global community of enthusiasts spanning sectors from business and event planning to art and academia. You can follow or join our group discussions and events through our Discord server.
HOW TO GET IN TOUCH WITH MICHAEL BARNGROVER:
EMAIL: MICHEAL BARNGROVER
XR4 ALL: MICHEAL BARNGROVER
PERSONAL WEBSITE: MICHEAL BARNGROVER
RAPTOR DANCE STUDIOS WEBSITE: RAPTOR DANCE STUDIOS
EUROMERSIVE INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION: EUROMERSIVE TURKEY
LINKEDIN: MICHEAL BARNGROVER
YOUTUBE: MICHEAL BARNGROVER
TWITTER: MICHEAL BARNGROVER
DISCORD: XR CROWD
GATHERVERSE.LIVE
Last week with the MMM event, the GatherVerse.live platform was launched.
The “Flying Into The Metaverse Through Books & Culture” project is now featured on the platform and you can find the videos in the playlist dedicated to this link.
So we invite you to visit GatherVerse.live which will soon host new interesting events.
AREA6DOF on YOUTUBE
If you want to be constantly updated with the publications of the next videos of “Flying Into The Metaverse Through Books & Culture” subscribe to the ARea6DoF Youtube Channel and stay up to date! This is the link of the channel to join: Cecilia Lascialfari – ARea6DoF
Cecilia is also an artist, photographer, videomaker, community manager and International Journalist. She is the organizer of AWE Nite Florence and she is the Italian Representative for Artivive.
Cecilia is a member of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence (AIxIA is a member of the EurAI/ECCAI) which includes professionals from the most important research institutions and Italian universities.
Cecilia created a project called “Flying Into The Metaverse Through Books & Culture”, which is a series of interviews with the most important professionals in the XR field and manages an online Journal called ARea6DoF, registered to the Italian Court, where she writes the articles about the different topics she is concerned with.