Dustin Stephan

Dustin Stephan

The Gallery

Role: Producer & Designer
Team Size: 5 (Ruili Tang, Mohan Bai, Qianye 'Renee' Mei, Xuejun Wang)
Duration: 2 weeks
Platform: HTC Vive [VR] / [MR]

The Gallery Title

The Gallery was a Virtual Reality experience built for the HTC Vive platform. It was a location-based experience with the virtual space mapped 1:1 with a physical themed room.

As Creative Director, Producer, & Designer; I led the overall vision for the Virtual Reality experience. Part of the Building Virtual Worlds coursework at Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center, the experience was designed and built in a two-week rapid prototype and iteration process.

The Original VR Gallery

I envisioned an experience in a digital environment where guests could interact with and walk into famous works of art. With my background in performance art, I wanted an experience where guests could have agency to traverse and locomote throughout the environment to "fix" paintings and interact with the artwork.

In the final activation, guests would enter the room themed to a museum gallery. Two paintings were prominently displayed: Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli and Mae West's Face which May be Used as a Surrealist Apartment by Salvador Dali.

The Gallery Festival SetupThe Gallery VR Setup


Guests would put on the HTC Vive Headset and be transported to a virtual environment matching the physical one they are standing in. The lights flicker and the paintings are now awry. Guests can transport into the works of art and through a series of interactions are able to "fix" the paintings as they come alive in 3D.

The Gallery Festival Player


The experience was very well received and showcased at the Entertainment Technology Center's Festival. I ran the production for the experience, making sure the environments matched by facilitating work between the artists, programmers, and ETC building staff. Additionally, I built props and was responsible for the audio in the activation.

The project also received press, which can be found here; And on my Press page.
VIDEO LINK (original build with audio)
VIDEO LINK (BVW Festival Composite video / no audio)