“I didn't choose XR. XR chose me”
Athena Demos is co-founder and CEO of Big Rock Creative (BRC), an award-winning XR experience company creating groundbreaking experiences for global clients. Big Rock Creative won the Producer’s Guild Award for Innovation, the Aurea Award for creativity, the No Proscenium award for Best VR experience of 2020, the Hermes' Platinum Award, the Auggie Award for Best Societal Impact of 2022 and the Global LiveWire Creative Innovators of the Year for 22/23. With over 20 years of experience producing iconic events, like the LA Burning Man Decompression Arts and Music Celebration, as well as the Art of Change Inaugural Ball for President Obama in LA, she transitioned to the metaverse to produce BRCvr (Black Rock City Virtual Reality).
BRCvr is an official virtual Burning Man Experience and AUREA#3 winner. Athena produced internationally recognized social impact projects such as Breonna’s Garden (AUREA#4 finalist) which premiered at SXSW 2022. She has developed a philosophical approach to guiding humanity to build a foundational fabric for creative collaboration in the metaverse and her work is quoted in leading books and articles.
Anelia Heese from the AUREA Community team sat down with her for a chat about the dust at Burning Man.
When you talk to a “true Burner” about Burning Man, they often get lyrical about two things: the community, and the dust. The dried lakebed dust of the playa in the Nevada desert is an all-infiltrating constant of Burning Man. It's not dirt. It's not sand. It is a fine, fine powder that turns skin ghost gray, shades all fabric with a chalky cloudiness. “The dust will destroy everything you own. But the dust binds us all - we’re all breathing it, we’re all dirty with it.”
When the pandemic forced organisers to change course, Athena and her team worked on the inaugural Virtual Burn and moved the entire festival online for 2021 over COVID concerns. Attendees were able to roam the art-laden landscapes from the comfort of their own home through VR.
When Aaron Wisniewski from OVR Technology pitched his project at the 4th AUREA Awards, Athena was one of the judges. OVR creates wearable scent technology, to enable for more immersive digital experiences. “Can you code the smell of Burning Man?” Athena asked during the pitch. Aaron answered with a confident, "Yes, of course we can.”
After the pitch, Athena sent Aaron a message: “Okay, I wasn’t kidding. We’re working on a virtual burn and I’d love to have smell be a part of it.” The following year, Aaron sent his scent engineers to capture the smell at the 2022 Burning Man. Athena is excited to incorporate it into their next digital exhibition.
For Athena, this is an example of how community and XR are intertwined. “I didn't choose XR, XR chose me. We joke in the Burning Man community amongst the community leaders that it's kind of like hotel California - you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. After 15 years, I retired in 2017. Back in 2015, I worked on a little project to build a digital twin of Burning Man. The pandemic hit, and then suddenly, I was back at it, building the virtual burn. We ran it on Altspace, and when you look at the user guidelines on Altspace, they read like the Burning Man principles.”
The 10 Principles of Burning Man captures key values that burners align to: radical inclusion, gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, immediacy and participation. Altspace was shut down in March 2023, but it was as important to VR communities as MySpace was to social media.
“It’s really sad that Altspace had to close, but we can take the knowledge we learned from that endeavour, especially the need for community-centric platforms. The next platform will work. We’re working on it.”