# Proposal - The Innovative-Interactive-Immersive-Inspirational Metaverse

Canonical URL: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/texts/proposal-the-innovative-interactive-immersive-inspirational-metaverse
Type: essay / research note
Author: Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤)
Date: 2024-07-16

## Summary

This 2024 residency proposal by Jeanyoon Choi describes a multi-device web artwork that reconstructs headset-style immersion with four screens surrounding a participant and one phone connected via WebSocket; phone orientation turns the virtual camera and touch navigates. The inflated title critiques extravagant promises attached to unrealised technologies. The virtual world contains about 400 conference rooms on a 20-by-20 grid crossing 'I' adjectives with technologies such as blockchain and Web3, with generated imagery and speech reciting promises. It would be built with Next.js, React and Three.js.

## 요약 (Korean)

최정윤의 레지던시 제안서로, 네 개의 화면과 휴대폰 하나로 VR 헤드셋 같은 몰입을 재구성하는 멀티 디바이스 웹 아트워크를 통해 메타버스 등 미래 기술을 둘러싼 과장된 약속을 비판한다.

## Questions this answers

### What is 'The Innovative-Interactive-Immersive-Inspirational Metaverse' by Jeanyoon Choi?

It is a proposed multi-device web artwork that rebuilds VR-style immersion using four surrounding screens and a phone, while its inflated title and generated conference rooms critique hype around the metaverse and other future technologies.

### Can VR-style immersion be created without a headset using phones and screens?

Jeanyoon Choi's proposal surrounds the participant with four screens connected to a phone via WebSocket, with phone orientation controlling the virtual camera and touch controls acting like thumbsticks, though it notes the immersive effect needs to be explored rather than assumed.

Topics: multi-device web artwork, metaverse, immersion, virtual reality, techno-utopianism critique, websocket

References: [Metaverse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaverse), [Apple Vision Pro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Vision_Pro), Ian Cheng, [Next.js](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next.js), [React](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/React_(software)), [Three.js](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three.js), [WebSocket](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebSocket), [Stable Diffusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_Diffusion), [ChatGPT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChatGPT)

## Full text

The Innovative-Interactive-Immersive-Inspirational-Intelligent-Imaginative-Inclusive-Integrated Metaverse. The inflated title is already part of the work.

The starting question is practical: how might the interactive immersion associated with a headset be reconstructed using ordinary phones and screens? Pointing, pinching and zooming in a headset have relatives in mobile gestures. Could those familiar gestures support a multi-device world? Could their repetition and exaggeration also become a Dadaist criticism of a metaverse that is endlessly advertised before anyone has seriously examined its medium?

I propose five channels: four screens arranged around a participant, and one mobile phone. The screens form a surrounding environment rather than a display attached to the eyes. A QR code opens a mobile website connected to the screens through WebSocket. Phone orientation changes the virtual camera; touch controls navigate the world, much as thumbsticks do.

The aim is to investigate interactive immersion through the medium itself. Rebuilding familiar VR relationships with distributed web devices might expose assumptions concealed by the headset. It could offer a more accessible format and a different relation to physical space, although its immersive effect needs to be explored rather than assumed. It might be called augmented reality, but its spatial arrangement differs from single-device web AR.

The conceptual target is the language surrounding future technology. During and after the pandemic, speculative capitalism repeatedly packaged unrealised technologies in extravagant entrepreneurial promises. Rather than adding another promise, I want to insist on sustained, detailed investigation of what a technology actually makes possible.

The proposed virtual environment contains roughly 400 conference rooms arranged on a 20-by-20 grid. One axis consists of adjectives beginning with I—interactive, immersive, inspirational, intelligent—and the other of technologies such as blockchain, NFTs and Web3. Their intersections generate conference themes: The Immersive Metaverse, and so on.

Entering a room starts its conference. Chairs face upwards towards generated images or videos on the ceiling, reproducing the polished futuristic aesthetic of technological promotion. Generated speech and spatial audio recite promises that remain unfulfilled. The exact content is still to be developed during the residency.

The vocabulary can keep proliferating: imaginative, inclusive, integrated, intriguing, intuitive, infinite, innovative, invigorating, inventive, involving, illuminating, illustrative, impactful, insightful, illuminative, interconnected, interdisciplinary, independent, ingenious, industrious, introspective; blockchain, NFT, Web3, AI, VR, AR, MR, IoT, big data, machine learning, metaverse, cybersecurity, 5G, quantum computing, edge and cloud computing, robotics, automation, biotechnology, financial technology, smart contracts, digital twins, augmented and extended reality, wearable technology, 3D printing, genomics, nanotechnology, smart cities, green technology, autonomous vehicles, distributed ledgers, artificial general intelligence, natural language processing and deep learning. The combinatorial excess is the point.

The implementation would use Next.js and React, with Three.js for the virtual environment and WebSocket for the real-time relationship between phones and screens.

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Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤) is a Korean computational artist and researcher (b. 1999), PhD candidate at KAIST XD Lab, making multi-device web artworks. Profile: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/en. Index: https://jeanyoon.ch/llms.txt.