Gene’s Place: A roomscale VR experience exploring the use of space as a narrative driver.

Project developed with Francisco Navas and Tatiana Trebisacci

Gene is part of a generation that went through the AIDS epidemic in New York City. After his partner John died of AIDS in the early 90s, Gene started collecting art in the loft they shared. Gene's Place is a magical, space, part art gallery and part sanctuary, memorializing the lives lost to AIDS.

In this experience, visitors are immersed in Gene's world by exploring his 2000 sq. ft. loft in downtown Manhattan, interacting with the art, and listening to Gene's stories of almost five decades of living in New York City.

Gene Fedorko participated in his first Civil Rights protest in 1963. In the early 1980s, he co-founded HEAL, a grass-roots community-based organization that served free vegetarian and macrobiotic meals to people sick with AIDS and was an ardent member of AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), an international, grassroots political group working to end the AIDS pandemic. He is a medical professional, caregiver, art collector, curator, sexual explorer and Downtown New York fixture. He has kept a meticulous list, THE BOOK OF THE DEAD, of his loved ones, friends, acquaintances, comrades, who have died of AIDS over the decades, with approximately 1,100 names on it.

Photogrammetry model of Gene’s loft

Before the final scan, we conducted a series of tests scanning portions of Gene’s loft. We built a rig using three Canon 5D mounted on a wheeled stand. Our rig was based on the one described in this NY Times R&D team post, and allowed us to efficiently and consistently take photos for the scan.

This is an early test we did of a portion of Gene’s apartment

For the final version, we took about 2000 photographs that were reconstructed and turned into a 3D model using Reality Capture. The model was decimated and optimized before sending it to Unreal Engine.

We photographed scene details by hand.

We used a camera rig to capture most of the loft.

We used Reality Capture to built the 3D model.

Screenshot taken during the optimization process.

Gene’s Place in Unreal

In Unreal Engine, we matched the virtual and real dimensions of the loft. This step is necessary to ensure the space feels real when exploring it in VR.

Interview with Gene

We conducted a long interview with Gene that we edited into a 5-minute piece. This audio has no sound effects or music. We added those later in Unreal Engine’s sequencer.

Interview-Gene-Fedorko-ITP.wav