Weston Gaylord '11
Photo: Darragh Dandurand
Weston Gaylord ’11
Independent Writer and Director | Intersection of Technology and Storytelling
July 2020
by Jim Collins
The Spring/Summer 2020 issue of Lakeside magazine featured "The Futurists," a gallery of forward-looking alums who, unconstrained by current assumptions, offer a view from outside the box.
BACKGROUND // Theater training, play-writing, degree in symbolic systems, with a focus in human-computer interaction.
HIS QUESTION // How can augmented and virtual reality help deepen the emotional experience of live performance?
THE WORK // Writes, directs, and designs immersive staged productions. Recently co-wrote and developed Chained: A Victorian Nightmare, which blended real-time motion capture, room-scale VR, and live theater in an inventive adaptation of the classic Dickens ghost story.
THE FUTURE // Technologically, VR today is an isolating experience. VR needs to overcome its current inability to comfortably put people into the same virtual space. When that gets figured out, there will be a flowering of powerful, shared artistic experiences.
IN HIS WORDS // “It’s a dead-end trying to digitally recreate the fidelity of the natural world. But used as a tool — the way a microphone, or good lighting, or live music is a tool — virtual reality can deepen people’s connection through art.”