AboutElseVR, a Mixed Reality channel, is a disruptive idea in narrative nonfiction and journalism.
It brings extraordinary and urgent stories to Virtual Reality (VR), granting the audience an entry “into” the story. By shattering the barrier between the viewer and the subject, VR has the power to elicit enquiry and empathy. Published online as a quarterly, each story facilitates collaborations between formidable filmmakers, writers and designers to amplify the power of narrative.
The magazine is the non-fiction VR platform from Memesys Culture Lab.
Memesys Culture LabMemesys Culture Lab is a cinema and new media studio at the intersection of science, philosophy and culture. We aim to interpret and demystify current breakthroughs in our understanding of the self and the universe, by actively participating in cinema, literature, pedagogy, technology, art, scientific and philosophical research, and actions of significant social impact.The TeamAnand Gandhi Executive Producer
Filmmaker. Philosopher. Innovator.
Anand is a filmmaker and media producer deeply interested in philosophy, evolutionary psychology, innovation, design and magic, and occasionally dabbles in all of these. His last film, Ship of Theseus premiered at the TIFF in 2012, and received wide international acclaim. In November 2015, Anand founded the Memesys Culture Lab. Khushboo Ranka Editor in Chief
Filmmaker. Writer.
Khushboo recently co-directed the documentary film An Insignificant Man, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival 2016. She also co-wrote Ship of Theseus. Her first short film Continuum was shown at various international film festivals.
Shubhangi Swarup Executive Editor
Writer. Journalist. Educationist. Daydreamer.
Shubhangi has worked in the field of journalism, education, Human Rights and curation in the past. She joined Memesys Culture Lab after completing her first work of fiction. She has won two national Laadli awards for gender sensitive writing in the past, and was awarded the Charles Pick Fellowship for creative writing, in the University of East Anglia.
Zain Memon Creative Director
Story-teller. Media-tech innovator. Futurist.
Co-founder of Memesys Culture Lab, Zain has dramatically influenced the Virtual Reality ecosystem coming from the Indian subcontinent, having designed state-of-the-art workflows and immersive grammatical tools for Mixed Reality. His expertise in storytelling, technology, narrative design, and ludology allow him to bridge the gap between technology and effective storytelling.
Shirin Johari Head of Design
Visual artist. Innovator. Entrepreneur. Lover of the ocean.
Shirin is the Co-Founder of Clap Global and a Creative Director at Memesys Culture Lab.
Previously, she worked as an advertising creative innovating in brand building, graphic design, installations, typography and performances. Shirin believes that creative work should either solve a problem, enlighten, change social perceptions or simply entertain.
Along the way, she has won numerous national and international awards for her work, including the Cannes Design Gold. Shone Satheesh Associate Editor
Journalist. Photographer.
Shone Satheesh combines his interest in the written word with the ever-evolving vocabulary of visual culture to push the boundaries of story-telling. He has worked in the media industry for close to a decade, at places like The Indian Express and Tehelka, among others.
ContactGet in touch with us at hello@elsevr.tvHead Office : Mumbai, IndiaMemesys Culture Lab, 30, Aaram Nagar 2, Versova, Mumbai 61.
Most VR documentary film-makers from India and abroad pick up a camera, set out to capture and then report the stories they deem important. Using the conventional wisdom and language of film, documentaries attempt to engage the viewers, evoke an emotional response and bring forth action and awareness. It attempts to transcribe the reality of a place, person or people and carry it across time and distance to viewers who may be completely foreign to these realities.
In this backdrop, virtual reality documentaries are a game changer – a new medium bursting with technological potential and a raw immersive power. Virtual reality has the ability to fundamentally alter how we experience events and stories, by ‘taking’ us to the points of incidence using just a VR headset. A virtual reality documentary aims to make people understand what happened in a more profound way by allowing them to become witnesses to the event.
Here at ElseVR, we harness the VR documentary format to tell urgent stories of people that don’t get their voices heard. Our audiences travel to the recurring floods of Bihar, India in ‘Submerged’ and witness the scope of coal excavation and displacement in ‘The Cost of Coal’ (India’s first documentary shot in Virtual Reality). United Nations’ Virtual Reality app, UNVR, has acquired Virtual Reality Documentary in India, titled “Cost of Coal”.
It allows them to be in important situations and movements with greater immersion and empathy. These VR documentaries allow viewers to travel in the flood ravaged lands of ‘Submerged’ or watch scholarship-winning ballet dancers performing in ‘Yeh Ballet’ and traverse the vast Himalayan landscape with two school-girls in ‘Crossing the Sky’.
