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Exploring the ecological and social impact of tourism.

ADVENA is a virtual reality (VR) resort created by artist Georgia Tucker.

Through Advena, Georgia Tucker explores the ecological and social impact of tourism and its corresponding resort culture. The full experience of Advena is designed to be an overstimulating sensory experience, highlighting the excessive nature of current fast lifestyles and our craving for more stimulation.

The installation will be shown at the W Hotel in London until November 2021.

Having worked with Georgia Tucker on a previous installation, we utilised our ongoing relationship to collaborate closely, helping to deliver her creative vision.

“Our Immersive and Audio Visual teams have been working in collaboration with Georgia for a few years now. It’s always a pleasure to be part of the team in helping realise the vision she has – producing multi-sensory virtual experiences for her unique works exploring sustainability, climate change and technology.” Karam Bhamra, Immersive Experience Lead.

An immersive environment.

ADVENA is designed to be an experience that highlights the excessive nature of current lifestyles and our craving for more.

We supported the creation of ADVENA by designing both the virtual scene and its accompanying audio. The installation is fully interactive and utilises VR headsets, high-quality audio and aromas, giving users a completely unique sensory experience.

The hidden technology.

The design was then imported into Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) where the final visual and interactive elements were added such as moving trees, dynamic lighting, flowing water, and the bespoke soundscape created by our team.

Using UE4, we also added in trigger volumes within the scene allowing the visual appearance to change depending on the player’s location in the experience.

Enveloped in sound.

We also produced designed the audio for ADVENA. With an open brief, we seized the opportunity to create a bespoke and tailored audio experience.

As the visuals were created in Unreal Engine, we used the audio middleware system “WWise” by Audiokinetic. Within WWise, we controlled how the audio behaved in the VR environment from attenuation to head tracking to reverb volumes, creating a sense of realism.

Ahead of the installation launch, we released the audio as an album, entitled ‘Bobby Hex – ADVENA’ that is available on all major digital streaming platforms.

If you want to visit the virtual world of ADVENA, watch the video below to begin your escape.