Walking New York in VR

On April 26, 2015 Elmar received his fifteen minutes.

He received a lot more than fifteen minutes. He is the star of The New York Times Magazine for this date but more than that he participated in the virtual reality video telling the story of how the French artist JR put this 20 years old waiter in the cover of the magazine dedicated to the immigrants of the city.

The video is called Walking New York and is a breakthrough in documentaries, in how to relate to the VR video media and creates a new kind of art.

The story is simple: New York Times decided to dedicate a number of its magazine to the immigrants of New York. As JR himself explains in the video: everybody in New York is an immigrant or a son of an immigrant or a grandson of an immigrant.

For the cover of the magazine they contracted JR for a large-scale street photography.

JR is a French artist known mainly by its huge photographies that he applies to street walls.  

JR is a French artist known mainly by its huge photographies that he applies to street walls. 

He chooses Elmar because he likes the way the young waiter walks. JR with a group of friends take some photos of Elmar walking, print it, apply it to the floor of a central place in New York.

Then on the afternoon “when the lights were right” JR get up with an helicopter and took the picture of the picture of Elmar walking in New York.

All this was filmed using the virtual reality technologies creating an incredible work of art.

By far the best VR video ever made.

About JR
WIRED: How The NY Times Is Sparking the VR Journalism Revolution
Face2Face: JR on the Israeli Palestinian Wall