Metaverses
Cha-Cha-Cha
Dance Party

How can we create multiplicious and inclusive metaverses? What role can a metaverse play in bringing together online and on-site audiences at a hybrid event? Together with creative coder Babusi Nyoni, The Hmm, and MU Hybrid Art House we’ve created a dancing metaverse ++ party, through which we aim to address these research questions. 

During its first edition, the public was invited to join on-site or online during Dutch Design week 2022. We were joined by artist Sander Veenhof who presented three of his latest hybrid AR experiments, and DJ Vir the Sir who provided the soundtrack to the party, live on the decks.

In the weeks leading up to the event, our guests were invited to create their own avatar at one of our in-person or online avatar workshops, or via this 4-step guide to building your own avatar. At the party, our guests could then see their avatar on the screen dancing along with them - or in some cases twerking uncontrollably. For all of the passers-by who joined our event on-site, a randomly generated avatar was provided, sparking humorous reactions. 

Our metaverse ++ parties are both an experiment and an opportunity for participants to learn what it’s like to build and play with their own avatar and engage with different ways of being and moving in the metaverse. But they are also an opportunity for us to explore hybridity and understand what factors result in fun, interactive and truly connecting events. We are reflecting upon the research findings from our first metaverses party as part of the development of the TOOLKIT FOR THE INBETWEEN.

We hope to see you at a future metaverses ++ party soon!

METAVERSES CHA-CHA-CHA DANCE PARTY is an experiment by affect lab, MU Hybrid Art House, Tripleblack Agency, and The Hmm, as part of the Innovation Labs project TOOLKIT FOR THE INBETWEEN."