HASTAC 2023 Conference

We're hosting a 90 minute critical making workshop inside Multibrush, an expressive, networked, collaborative virtual reality environment where both expert and novice participants can co-create interactive, immersive sculptures inside the virtual reality environment itself, using an intuitive interface. Because of the nature of the software, the workshop is remote access only and for up to 20 participants with their own VR headsets, from anywhere in the world. 

Critical update:  Multibrush was designed as an open-source multiplayer implementation of the open source code for Tilt Brush. But Multibrush is no longer open-source! 
It is currently working for Quest, Quest 2, Meta Quest Pro.

If yu do not already own Mulltibrush, the organizers will provide access to yu in the form of a digital code that you can use to purchase. WE WILL NEED YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS TO DO THIS.  Please see the presentation sheet for more information.

Inside the VR environment we will collectively create sculptural evocative objects organized around the theme of ‘childhood’ – a theme chosen both for its expansive capacity to leverage memory and play and also for its capacity to surface diversity. Multibrush makes it possible for participants to hear each other while making, too – so conversations around diverse childhoods can actively inform the creation of shared work. In this way the workshop concretizes research-creation – with ideas and making being co-constitutive.

The workshop will tackle the practical – “how do I log on?” “How does my brush work?” “How do I make stars?” “How can I contribute to a shared project?” so workshop participants will leave with practical knowledge. And it will also have a takeaway: Multibrush supports the co-creation of virtual sculptures and the output can be exported as 3d files that can then be disseminated in new viewing situations. We are especially interested in the way that 3D printing at this time tends toward the miniature, while XR outputs can approach the gigantic. For this reason, we offer to provide the magical object we create together as both a 3D-printed amulet small enough to be worn as a necklace, or as a QR code leading to an augmented digital 3d asset larger than a person (created for web XR). After the workshop, workshop leaders will use the amulet/sculpture itself as a tracker for an XR experience – linking back, perhaps, to the audio/video of the making of the object itself. In this way the object is a cipher… a portal into the process of research-creation itself.

For the past three years the organizers have successfully used Multibrush as a co-creative environment between indigenous and settler artists and have been assessing the moment of co-creation for its potential to enable reconciliation predicated upon the vulnerability of making together. HASTAC Scholars on our team have also been using Multibrush to explore dance in VR. We would like to share what we’ve learned with the HASTAS community through critical making and this workshop and in the service of social justice. The team consist of both senior scholars and HASTAC scholars.