BRCvr (Black Rock City VR), an official virtual Burning Man experience created by Big Rock Creative, has been hosting global Burning Man experiences in virtual reality for the past few years, including experiences that run concurrent to the in-person Burning Man event, as well as a virtual film festival.
This month, BRCvr will be unveiling its third global virtual Burning Man-inspired event, Re-Burn-23, which will take place from January 27th – 29th. The experience will include many immersive worlds that visitors may have previously discovered during the 2020 and 2021 Virtual Burns with the addition of some new environments. Re-Burn-23 is free to anyone who wants to join, wherever they are in the world, and can be accessed via AltspaceVR on a VR headset and desktop, and via Zoom on desktop and mobile.
One of the new additions is Blind Burners World, which will enable people to experiment with navigation by sound throughout the space. The world will feature a gallery of work by blind and low vision artists including audio descriptions of each piece of art recorded by the artists. Within Blind Burners World, visitors will also be able to explore the Temple of Accessibility and the Galactic Sound Garden, the latter of which is a “creatively interpreted deep playa galaxy in which the sun is represented by an interactive gong bath,” that visitors can move around in using spatial audio.
“When Burning Man communities moved online in 2020, Athena and the team at BRCvr were the first to embrace our call for accessibility in the metaverse, supporting us in our quest to connect, create, express ourselves and play,” said Chris Hainsworth of Blind Burners. “Without accessibility, cultural claims to radical inclusion are as shallow as a teacup. We’re excited to be part of Re-Burn-23, and to join in celebrating the art and community which are flourishing through BRCvr.”
In addition, Re-Burn-23 will preview the “BRCvr Immersive Documentary Experience,” a new mixed reality, interactive documentary format featuring live action content captured using 360 video during the 2022 in-person burn. During Re-Burn-23, participants will be able to engage with and share the experience for the first time.
“Burning Man has always been at the cutting edge of technology, and we are very excited to take this to the next level in the metaverse with a novel non-linear participatory storytelling experience that will eventually be available in its entirety via a proprietary app,” said Doug Jacobson, co-founder of BRCvr and Big Rock Creative. “We are beyond excited to premiere a taste of this first-of-its-kind experience during Re-Burn-23.”