VR Art, Immersive Storytelling, and Festival Culture Matter More Than Hype—Kent Bye, Voices of VR

About this episode

Kent Bye—host of the Voices of VR podcast and one of XR's most prolific journalists with over 1,680 published interviews—joins Charlie and Ted for a wide ranging conversation on the state of immersive storytelling, the ethics of AI, and why XR's future might be less about consumer headsets and more about embodied presence and human connection. Kent's decade-long commitment to documenting artists, creators, and developers at the ground level offers a counterpoint to hype-driven tech coverage, revealing the messy, vital ecosystem sustaining VR through festival circuits, location-based entertainment, and government-funded experimental projects that rarely make headlines.

The conversation opens with Jeff Bezos's new AI robotics company Prometheus, Amazon's one-to-one human-robot workforce parity, and the implications of industrial AI automation. Ted shares his recent appearance on cinematographer Roger Deakins's podcast, where they discussed AI as a creative tool rather than a threat—a perspective Kent echoes when discussing artists who use AI to critique AI's "colonizing force." Kent explains his philosophy of "boots on the ground" journalism inspired by Knight Ridder's Iraq War reporting, focusing on developers and creators closest to the work rather than corporate press releases.

Kent reveals why he's been lukewarm on smart glasses despite industry excitement—monocular displays give him headaches, his prescription is too strong for current hardware, and most importantly, there's no compelling narrative content yet. He contrasts this with VR's rich immersive storytelling at festivals like Venice Immersive, Sundance New Frontier, IDFA DocLab, and Tribeca, where government-funded European projects push the medium's boundaries in ways U.S. startups can't afford to explore. The discussion touches on Meta's Ray-Ban AI glasses, the impracticality of Meta's neural band input, and why Snap's developer platform remains the most interesting AR ecosystem despite limited consumer traction.

Guest Highlights

• Published 1,682 VR interviews with 1,000+ unpublished; focused on artists, creators, and developers over corporate narratives.
• Covers 30+ hours of immersive content per festival at Venice, Sundance, IDFA DocLab—documenting ephemeral art that may never distribute widely.
• Started in 2014 after buying Oculus DK1; began by capturing oral history at Silicon Valley VR Conference's first gathering.
• Background as F-22 Raptor radar systems engineer turned documentary filmmaker—blends hardcore technical knowledge with artistic sensibility.
• Advocates for XR as antidote to smartphone addiction—technologies that foster embodied presence rather than infinite distraction.

News Highlights

• Jeff Bezos launches Prometheus AI robotics company—focusing on industrial applications where enterprise