Versions is a new realities conference dedicated to exploring the creative landscape of virtual, augmented, mixed, and physical reality. Versions is co-organized by the New Museum’s cultural incubator NEW INC and video game media company Kill Screen.

At Versions 2016, media theorist Janet Murray said it best: “You can predict the direction of change, but you can’t predict its rate.” With the hype around virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality starting to settle, we turned our attention to what’s working, what isn’t, and the true opportunities presented by these nascent technologies. 
Versions 2017 was Facing Reality by taking a frank look at the current pitfalls, design gaps, and technological limitations of these emerging tools, as well as how artists and technologists were persistently working to advance them in service of a dramatically new cultural form.
Versions 2017 considered the challenges to VR’s wide-scale adoption while exploring pressing questions in its current state and future development: What experiences will these technologies offer? What new visual and sensorial languages will emerge? How will they affect our notion of what is real? How will we wield these new capabilities, and to what ends? As usual, we applied our cross-disciplinary, cross-generational approach to face reality as we look forward to the next frontiers.


You, Me, & Everyone We Know
Jon Rafman, Judith Donath, Victor Luo, Cecilia Abadie, Jamin Warren (Moderator)

Featured Project: Fistful of Stars
Eliza McNitt

Fireside Chat
Brenda Laurel, Claire L. Evans

Featured Project: Tree
Milica Zec, Winslow Porter

Sensing Stories
Chandler Burr, Charlotte Furet. Robin McNicholas, Dražen Bošnjak, Adi Robertson (Moderator)

Living in a Simulation
Marco Tempest, Robert Yang, Leigh Christie, Adrianne Jeffries (Moderator)

Lynn Hershman Leeson was slated to speak but unfortunately could not attend.

Featured Project: Zero Days VR
Yasmin Elayat                    

Keynote Address: Facing Reality
Cory Doctorow