UNCANNY ALLEY | Rick Treweek _ZA

South African director Rick Treweek‘s virtual reality experience, Uncanny Alley, winner of the Best Immersive World award at the 2022 Raindance Festival, explores the current state of the Metaverse from a small corner of the VRChat virtual universe.

VRChat is an ever-expanding space driven by a passionate community that has been creating and sharing virtual worlds, avatars, and interactive experiences since 2015. An active and freely accessible social environment where we can interact in real time with other users while navigating through fascinating worlds, which we can also create ourselves. From this platform, the Uncanny Alley project addresses various topics and concepts of the Metaverse based on the real world, inspired by the communities that are building the foundations of the open Metaverse, such as M3 (Metaverse Makers) and The MVC (Metaverse Crew).

During the experience, formatted as a group-guided tour, we follow Gh0st, Glitch, and other Metazins as they navigate their little part of the Metaverse. Gh0st has disappeared while working on systems to cross worlds, so we follow the clues and revelations of this immersive universe until we discover an existence beyond what seemed possible. The fourth wall of the Metaverse is broken, revealing a glimpse of the open Metaverse.