Silent discos are supposedly a new craze in partying and socializing, but it actually originated in the 20th Century and gained more popularity as we moved into the 21st Century. It is founded on an interesting concept: participants of the silent disco wear headphones that play different songs, so each participant can enjoy a different rhythm of music as they please. Additionally, is quite beneficial for those who often face sensory overload in social settings.
The Virtual Reality landscape observes two participants are joined together in a networked simulation, where they can observe each other’s actions simultaneously, as if they are acting in the same landscape, as they are.
The landscape design is an entirely dark dance floor with a giant neon sign that bears the logo “Dance Club” to really emphasize the nightclub setting. The way the networked simulation works is that the interactive orb that starts in the center of the room can be picked up and carried to one of three glowing circles on the dance floor. The activator acts as a trigger, playing music as long as the orb is in contact with the glowing circle. The music is asynchronous, as in participant 1 could be listening to classical music as participant 2 could be listening to rock music.
To accentuate the atmosphere of the nightclub setting, the participant’s controllers are tracked by glowing blue trails, so each participant can see the other’s movements as they dance to the music they are listening to. This results in an interesting phenomenon in that they can each assume the kind of the music the other person in listening to just by observing their arm movements. Specifically, user 1 could be making more fluid dance movements to classical music while user 2 could be dancing in a more energetic and rapid manner to upbeat music.
This captures the essence of a silent disco because if a third person observer were to be in the same landscape without any headphones, they would be in complete silence observing two people dance to completely different music.
