Response to Zander Reyna's Visit

Zander Reyna’s visit was very fun and exciting to take part in. I really appreciated the way in which Zander showed us his process and how his architects his art and a glimpse of his thinking process. Personally, I am incredibly intrigued by VR and game design, especially during current times when people are relying on virtual platforms for interactions and connections. The endless opportunities associated with VR are crazy as they open up the possibility of worlds we have only imagined. More so I think it is evident that we are approaching a more and more digitized world with technology and virtuality taking over nearly every aspect. Zander’s talk reminded me of how recently due to quarantining during the pandemic, some schools began hosting graduations over virtual platforms like Minecraft in which they interacted in a completely virtual world.

Zander’s mention of how much tracking is involved with these virtual platforms are concerning. In order to accurately and ideally use VR, it is required to use adequate tracking abilities to mirror the humans behind it. This could be concerning because such an immense amount of data is shared about the people using the platform that could potentially get into the hands of the wrong people since data is highly sensitive and has been time and time again found to be hacked or tampered with. While we are fascinated by the virtual reality and all the creative elements of it, we need to be careful with how much information we are providing to it when engaging with it.