Visionarium Art & Music Visualizer
• 3-star rating
• PCVR, Quest
• Art, Music, Uncommon
• Moderate Comfort, Stationary
Dutch multimedia artist Sander Bos is both a skilled programmer and painter, switching from oils and acrylics to 3D animation and virtual reality environments. His Visionarium series of VR experiences is artfully created yet unlikely to be appreciated by a wide audience. About his themes he talks of attaining new realities and exploring and expanding of consciousness, and those getting the most out Visionarium are likely looking for a psychedelic visual trip. We award these experiences with three stars because this site is focused on a general audience, through we acknowledge there are those that would rate this much higher.
The first Visionarium combines fantastical colorful creations, geometric shapes and slit-screen type effects, accompanied by multicolored strands that dance to the upbeat soundtrack. Decide on whether you want slow or faster movements based on your VR comfort level, and the camera weaves and turns along a linear path through a variety of scenes in a fixed order. Though we couldn't get our controllers to work, we were able to fast forward through the routine using keys between 'F' and 'K' on the keyboard. Kayla Scintilla's psychedelic soundtrack merging electronic notes with analog sounds is a great fit for the visuals. You can also replace this with your own music though you would have to first convert your music files to WAV format and place them in a specific folder on your computer.
The Visionarium combines scenes with geometric patterns.
Visionarium 2: The Descent for PCVR is similar to its predecessor but contains even more detailed and impressive scenes, originally hand-drawn by the artist using Tilt Brush/Open Brush. These scenes throb and pulse to the music and also contain animated characters that appear to dance to the beat. The multicolored strands from the first version are not immediately present in this sequel though you can reveal them by pulling a trigger, though we would have preferred it if these could be toggled rather than having to hold the trigger down. Controls work better here, and there are more options to choose from, including a free-fly mode, lying-down view, playback controls and the ability to replace the soundtrack with whatever might be playing on your PC or directly through your microphone.
Surprising considering the limitations of the Meta Quest platform, the Visionarium release for the Quest 2 is an very capable amalgam of the two PCVR experience and includes similar controls. We particularly enjoyed the 2001 Space Odyssey inspired neon slit-screen sequence towards the end.
Visionarum 2: The Descent focuses more on highly detailed scenes.
The Quest 2 version is almost as graphically capable as the PCVR iteration.
✅ Unique hand-drawn and computer generated art style
✅ Immersive dynamic psychedelic visuals and audio
❌ Fixed sequence that plays on a set path
❌ Controller issues with Visionarium
• YouTube: Trailer
• Languages: English
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