Henning Westerwelle – UNHOME Apart from Society

Henning Westerwelle: UNHOME Apart from Society
Germany, 2024
Duration: 20 min
Language: German
© Curious Company GmbH, GoBanyo gGmbH

Homelessness is more than the absence of a home—it’s a cycle of isolation, survival, and systemic barriers. UNHOME is a 20-minute VR experience that places players directly into this reality, offering a first-person perspective on the struggles of life on the streets. By engaging with critical decision making moments and experiencing the emotional weight of these choices, players gain a deeper understanding of the complexity of homelessness.

The game unfolds across four chapters, spanning different seasons and times of day, each highlighting the uncertainties and harsh conditions that define life on the streets. Players are asked to navigate difficult choices—whether to seek shelter, find food, or defend themselves in dangerous situations. While their actions influence the story’s outcome, the overarching reality remains unchanged: escaping homelessness is not just about personal choices but about overcoming structural barriers that make reintegration into society almost impossible.

UNHOME is based on real-life experiences and developed in close collaboration with GoBanyo, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to supporting people experiencing homelessness. The organisation, known for its mobile shower bus initiative and advocacy work, provided valuable insights to ensure an authentic and respectful portrayal of homelessness.

UNHOME is currently available for workshops and events, with a public release planned for the Meta Quest Store in 2025. By making the experience widely accessible, the project aims to bring the conversation about homelessness into more classrooms, conferences, and communities.

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Dennis Reinmüller – Validation

Dennis Reinmüller: Validation
Germany, 2025
Duration: 10 min
Language: English
© Doppel Real GbR

Assuming the role as Validator, we are guided through corporate validation protocols developed by the leading platform for the management and dissemination of state-approved memories. Our task seems simple: while investigating the scene of a crime, this memory space must be sanitized and validated to meet system and ideological requirements.

Interactions with the Echo-Graph interface reveal a previous agent’s logs that overlay glitches and inconsistencies over our reality, challenging us to confront the Archive’s agenda of narrative control and question the nature of state-approved Deutungshoheit.

Through dreamlike elements that evoke the fragility of memories, the viewers navigate memory spaces, analyze resonance data, and investigate glitches that reveal themselves to be deliberate fragments of a resistance left behind.

Supported by MOIN Filmförderung, Doppel Real aims to complete the final prototype by November 2025.

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TÒ SU / Martina Mahlknecht & Martin Prinoth: Below Deck

TÒ SU / Martina Mahlknecht & Martin Prinoth: Below Deck
Germany/Italy, 2024
Duration: 23 min
Language: English
© TÒ SU

We shouldn’t actually be here. In the belly of a passenger ship with the Filipino crew who are rehearsing a play. Millions of Filipinos work on cargo ships and cruise liners. We’ve read that somewhere before; seen, not really. Not even in the cruise ports of this world such as Venice, Hamburg, Amsterdam or Miami, where they often land, change ships or cargo or, during Covid, even got stuck for months. We belong on the sun deck, with territorially spread out towels and flip-flops. S and A class. Kate and Leonardo. Or rather: Kate and – further down towards the engine room – the staff. The eternal world order of the Titanic.

More than one-third of all crew members worldwide are Filipino, living and working below deck for several months without any days off. As an addressed observer of a quirky crew show rehearsal, you find yourself in a Lynchian scenario, oscillating between being a secretly invited guest and a voyeur. What persists is the question: Shouldn’t we risk the glimpse behind the curtain to discover what remains hidden from our perception?

 

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Wiktor Filip Gacparski, Line Hoven – Scratching the Surface

Wiktor Filip Gacparski, Line Hoven: Scratching the Surface
Germany, 2025
Duration: 5 min
Language: English
© Open Matter Studio, Heimspiel GmbH

The location-based XR experience Scratching the Surface invites audiences into the creative world of acclaimed illustrator Line Hoven, whose intricate scratchboard artworks emerge by carving light out of darkness.

At the center of the story is Hoven’s encounter with ARCHIE, an experimental AI trained to mirror and challenge her creative instincts. As Hoven’s analog practice collides with machine intelligence, Scratching the Surface explores urgent questions about authorship, control, and the evolving meaning of creativity in the age of AI.

Audiences experience Hoven’s real-world studio through cinematic VR and are then invited to step into reimagined 3D landscapes based on her original illustrations. Guided by ARCHIE’s evolving presence, the journey becomes a dialogue between human imagination and machine logic, shifting the viewer’s role from passive observer to active participant.

Scratching the Surface is a reflection on vulnerability, transformation, and the fluid relationship between traditional craftsmanship and digital innovation. By weaving Hoven’s personal story with a participatory experience, it challenges us to rethink how stories and artists can evolve in a rapidly changing world.

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Lui Avallos – Queer Utopia: Act I Cruising, 2023

Lui Avallos: Queer Utopia: Act I Cruising
Portugal/Brazil, 2023
Duration: 25 min
Language: English/Portuguese
© Mundivagante Studio, Lui Avallos

In the quiet intimacy of his living room, a retired playwright makes a heartfelt revelation to the viewer, whom he addresses with nostalgic tenderness—as if speaking to a long-lost friend. He is losing his memories. What begins as a confession unfolds into an invitation: to accompany him on a deeply personal and transformative journey to reconstruct and preserve the fragments of his fading past.

Queer Utopia: Act I Cruising draws inspiration from real-life stories of queer men over the age of 60, whose lived experiences often go unheard. This immersive and interactive narrative beckons the audience to witness the protagonist’s most intimate, layered, and sometimes contradictory recollections before they vanish.

Using the expressive language of theater and a unique visual aesthetic of ephemeral, particle-based bodies, the experience becomes a poetic reconstruction of memory. These flickering, performative moments take shape in dreamlike spaces that hover between the real and the imagined.

Interwoven throughout is an intergenerational reflection on the struggle for LGBTQIA+ rights—blending memory, identity, and speculative possibility. By delving into the past, the experience not only preserves what is at risk of being forgotten, but also dares to imagine a more inclusive, utopian future.

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