The EDEF tech hub is an interactive playground filled with new experiences to open your eyes to the future of technology. Be transported to virtual worlds where you can paint in 3D space and create your own masterpiece with Google’s Tilt brush or take a virtual spacewalk with the BBC project inspired by NASA’s training programme.

Watch 360°content in an immersive shared space from Igloo Vision, then follow the story of CALL ME by downloading the app, and discovering the story on the path round the tech hub as you discover a range of new technologies and interactive exhibits.

This 2 hour session will get you inspired by all the latest gadgets, creative tools and lightweight tech. Arrive at the start to ensure maximum tech-sploration! Under 12s must be accompanied by an adult.

Purchase of a ticket to the Games Studio* or Virtual Reality Studio includes a free ticket to the Tech Hub on the same day. To claim your free ticket, visit the EDEF box office on George St on the day of your session and present your Games Studio or Virtual Reality Studio ticket. You may then choose to access the Tech hub before or after your session.

*For workshop tickets for children under 12, the free ticket includes access for one adult guardian.

Tech Hub Exhibitors

Igloo Vision | 360° Cinema

5 – 28 AUG

Igloo Vision Limited is an immersive technology company, that designs, develops and delivers 360° immersive projection solutions. Stepping into an Igloo immersive projection environment is a little like stepping into inside a giant VR headset. And, because, an Igloo environment accommodates anything up to 1,000 people, it is a shared experience. So it is ideal for events, as well as collaborative teamwork, training and stakeholder engagement. Over the last 10 years Igloo have delivered 100’s of projects across the globe. Clients such as Adidas, Martini, Mercedes Benz, Medecins Sans Frontieres, The Guggenheim, Red Cross, Qinetiq, BP, Welsh Water, Skanska and Toys R Us have all invested in Igloo technology.

Google | Tilt Brush

5 – 28 AUG

Tilt Brush lets you paint in 3D space with virtual reality. Your room is your canvas. Your palette is your imagination. The possibilities are endless.

Subpac

5 – 28 AUG

Subpac is high fidelity and plug-and-play. It adds the physical dimensions of sound to game and VR, immersing you like never before. Experience storytelling, emotion and audio in a visceral way and feel like you’re truly there.

BBC | Home

5 – 28 AUG

Throw yourself into the void 250 miles above Earth in this Virtual Reality spacewalk. Inspired by NASA’s training programme and the astonishing experiences of its astronauts. Home has you stepping into the suit of an astronaut on a spacewalk, faced with the endless blackness of space, and earth a blue-green jewel below. Take on your mission, contend with the challenges of this alien environment and face an emergency that sees you trying to jet pack home to the space station.

Coatsink | Esper 2

5 – 28 AUG

Coatsink is a passionate and talented games development team working on games for PC, VR, Console and mobile. Coatsink has grown into a recognised face in the developer community, growing VR industry, and applications market. At EDEF you will be able to experience Coatsink’s Esper 2. Esper 2 is a direct sequel to Esper. Esper was a launch title for the Samsung Gear VR, powered by Oculus and has also been announced for the Oculus Rift. Make your way through ancient temples, government buildings, underwater bases and more, as you use your powers to solve puzzles and uncover secrets.

Guardian | 6×9

5 – 28 AUG

A virtual reality experience created by the Guardian about solitary confinement, 6×9 places viewers in a virtual cell, telling a story of the psychological damage that extreme isolation can cause. An estimated 80,000 people are currently in solitary confinement in the US. They spend 22-24 hours a day in their cells, with little to no human contact for days or even decades.

Owlchemy Labs | Job Simulator

5 – 28 AUG

Job Simulator is a virtual reality simulation video game developed and published by Owlchemy Labs for Microsoft Windows, in which players participate in comical approximations of real-world jobs. Robots and jobs in VR, what could be better?

Reflex Arc | The Virtual Plant Cell

5 – 28 AUG

Explore the inner world of a plant cell…with virtual reality. The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology is an Australian research centre aiming to better understand how plants create and use energy in order to improve them for agriculture. The centre runs an extensive education and outreach program to link the community with plant energy research. VPC is the centre’s latest educational experience and this preview will take you through the inner workings of a plant cell.

Line Wobbler

5 – 28 AUG

Line Wobbler is a one-dimensional dungeon crawler game with a custom wobble controller made out of a steel spring and a five meter long ultrabright LED strip display. It is an award-winning experiment in minimalism in game design, use of novel input mechanics, retro sound, and the incorporation of physical architectural space into the game. By bending and flinging the spring controller, players navigate obstacles and fight enemies to beat a series of increasingly difficult levels.

Jess Johnson | Ixian Gate

5 – 28 AUG

Ixian Gate is a virtual reality animation created by artist, Jess Johnson and music video director Simon Ward. Jess Johnson is renowned for highly detailed drawings of alternative realms that reveal her fascination with the inter-sections between language, popular culture, technology and science fiction. In her drawings she depicts complex worlds that combine densely layered patterns, objects and figures within architectural settings. Ixian Gate was created from high resolution scans of Jess Johnson’s drawings which she produced over an intensive four-year period. Simon Ward turned these scans into an immersive three-dimensional world using the game engine Unity.

Mix the City

5 – 28 AUG

Mix the City is a continuation of Kutiman’s Thru the City series, in which he records musicians from a city – simply playing what they want, but all in the same time and key – and then creating a brand new track from this material. To move forward into interactive, Kutiman turned back to his home town of Tel Aviv. The result is a totally unique portrait of a fascinating diverse city, encapsulating the broad range of communities that make it up.

Hammerhead VR | ABE VR

5 – 28 AUG

Written by Rob McLellan, ABE VR, is the story of a misguided robot seeking the unconditional love of humans…at whatever cost. Hammerhead have recreated the story in Unreal Engine, with great intensity, and quality. The film explores the emotional connection and heightened sense of empathy that VR delivers as a storytelling medium. Hammerhead have used new techniques to enhance the feeling of presence, such as the eye tracking between ABE, the viewer as a character, and the sense of physical restriction experienced by the hapless victim. ABE VR is also the first ever virtual reality film to receive a British Board of Film Classification rating.

BBC Learning | VRTOV | Easter Rising : Voice of a Rebel

5 – 28 AUG

Easter Rising: Voice of a Rebel lets users step into the memories of Willie McNeive and journey back in time to a moment that changed Irish history forever: the Easter Rising of 1916. Easter Rising: Voice of a Rebel lets users step into the memories of Willie McNeive and journey back in time to a moment that changed Irish history forever: the Easter Rising of 1916. The VR experience makes use of McNieve’s eyewitness account – a recording of which lay undiscovered for over 30 years. Through a remarkable, and very personal insight into this a key moment in European history, Easter Rising: Voice of a Rebel presents an artistic journey into the memory of an ordinary man who was swept up into an extraordinary event.

BBC R&D & VRTOV | The Turning Forest

5 – 28 AUG

In a magical forest, a young child stares into the eyes of a fantastical creature; together, the two embark on a journey that transports the player into an entrancing realm that weds folkish dimension with boundless imagination.The Turning Forest allows viewers of all ages to enter the sort of mystical world that adult dreamers fancied in their youth, drawing users into its bewitching atmosphere, and, more importantly, a purely fulfilled and long-forgotten state of childlike imagination. Written by Shelley Silas and directed by Oscar Raby, VRTOV has worked with BBC R&D to craft a powerful, art-driven experience that evokes the emotional space of a magical forest, enchanted with sounds – a place where anything might happen.

Brightside Studios | We Are All Made of Stars

5 – 28 AUG

Bright Side Studios design and build creative, interactive environments and installations that connect with people via a shared experience. Telling stories and creating unique sensory experientials with inventive blends of motion design and technology is at the core of what they do.