A new film that uses virtual reality (VR) technology to immerse users in the 1989 acid house party movement has started its UK tour in Birmingham.
The film, In Pursuit Of Repetitive Beats, sees the user becoming a character in a scene where, before cell phones were available, partygoers listened to pirate radio in search of a number to call and find the secret location for a rave. in a warehouse on the outskirts. of the West Midlands.
Users are equipped with a VR headset and a haptic suit that allows them to feel vibrations.
Users are provided with a VR headset and a haptic suit that allows them to feel vibrations
They have two portable controllers that allow you to hold and pick up things in the virtual environment.
Interviewees who contributed to the project include pirate radio DJs, ravers, MCs and police officers who were tasked with identifying where warehouse parties were taking place in order to shut them down.
Lee Fisher, a pirate radio DJ who performed at some parties, said that searching for locations was one of his strongest memories of the events.
“I think my memory of those warehouse parties, first of all, was discovering them,” he says in the film.
He continues: “So the kind of excitement of finding the venue, so is the party going to happen or is the party going to be shut down?
“And then going through this whole cycle of anxiety to finally get into this space and then there’s just this release of adrenaline.”
Tim Godwin, a retired West Midlands police officer, was posted to the force’s acid squad in the late 1980s.
“The squad’s responsibility was to gather information, disrupt activities and attempt to gather evidence to prosecute the individuals involved,” he says in the article.
He adds: “We would have a radio set… we would be listening to the same messages that people who wanted to attend the event would be listening to, so we would be listening for locations or telephone numbers, or directions to meeting points.”
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“Sometimes they would give you a fake location so you could get to another location without the police being there,” says Vicky Dixon, one of the film’s collaborators.
The film aims to shine a light on the West Midlands as a key part of the emergence of British dance music culture, according to its director, Darren Emerson.
“A lot of people are celebrated when it comes to the emergence of acid house and rave culture. You hear a lot about London, you hear a lot about Manchester and even places like Blackburn. But actually the West Midlands is a really important place, a real place pioneer for this type of music,” he said.
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The experience is part of a series of VR films that create a 360º world around the user to try to bring imaginary environments, or memories, to life.
Using VR technology to recreate historical environments raises questions about accuracy, but there are ways around this, according to Sylvia Xueni Pan, professor of virtual reality at Goldsmiths, University of London.
“There are different ways to actually recreate history, and obviously if you actually recreate something from your memory or from reading photographic material, you are doing it with your own subjectivity,” she said.
She added: “But technically there are ways to actually scan some real objects or find data that you have stored historically and try to recreate those objects more realistically.
“You’re actually trying to simulate from real data rather than trying to recreate it. So there can be a trade-off between the two methods.”
In Pursuit Of Repetitive Beats, produced by East City Films, will be available to experience in several UK cities over the next year, including Belfast, Cardiff and Brighton.
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