Emerging Technology“Right now. Today. This very moment. We can with absolute certainty promise that within a few short months, Triple-i will be in a position to sell a memory,” says Randall Rudd. “Not your memory, but a manufactured memory conceived, created and crafted by our courageous, talented and forward thinking-group called Triple-i, Immersion Industries International.
“This is not some outrageous boast. It is true”, says Rudd. “I know because I now have a vivid memory of a time, place and moment that never happened in my experience. This is how the brain records what we’re now calling ‘Immersions’ or VR movies. Through the new medium of Immersion, my memory banks now have a recording of ‘awakening’ back in time where I walked, fell, soared and interacted with individuals from another time. I experienced loneliness, camaraderie, fear, awe, and even fatigue. This memory feels as vivid and authentic as my graduation from high school, yet intellectually, I am cognitively aware this manufactured memory of mine was experienced, yet never ‘lived through.’ And that’s a first. Unlike a dream, such memories will not fade in the light of day.”
During production of what may be the world’s first narrative Immersion, in order to direct and construct his “shared dream,” Triple-i artists and technicians spend hours in their “immersed” state — living and working in a virtual environment. Oddly enough, these hours are recorded in our minds as memories, as time spent in another place, in a different time.
“Memories are embedded with location.” Professor Mark Bolas, director of the Mixed Reality Lab at USC, agrees. Bolas began creating rudimentary virtual worlds 20 years ago and recalls them as fondly as a European backpacking trip he took. “I’m nostalgic for those worlds. To me, those were very real places. They don’t exist anymore because the computer’s gone, that head-mount’s gone,” he said. “I’m not the only researcher to say that. I’ve talked to some other people from the old days, and they’re, like, ‘Yeah, I miss my worlds.’”
Nowadays, when I hear someone say, “You had to be there,” I respond with, “Not necessarily,” according to Rudd. “This is why the developers at Triple-i can promise, with absolute certainty, that for the first time in history, memories will be for sale, coming soon to an Immersive theatre near you.”