Meet the Team: ArmaniXR
An Introduction to the Members of Glitches.VR
Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I am an operational meteorologist, graduating from Texas A&M University in 2016. Outside of weather forecasting, I co-founded the Texas A&M Virtual and Augmented Reality student organization (TAMUVR) in 2016, and currently lead outreach efforts with the Intercollegiate XR organization (ICXR). Since 2016, I have conducted and presented research on data visualization in four national conferences and two regional conferences. I now lead development on multiple educational projects in spatial computing, including but not limited to weather safety and geography.
When and how did you get into social VR?
I got into social VR in early 2017 after I got help in the fall of 2016 from an IRL (in real life) friend to build my own VR-capable PC. This is the same friend who gave me my first PCVR experiences with the Oculus DK2 and CV1! 😄 I got an HTC Vive to go with the PC and started playing multiplayer games here and there in Rec Room before I made accounts in VRChat and AltspaceVR. That said, I didn't really spend a lot of time in social VR outside of gaming until the summer of 2020 when the pandemic lockdowns made us all look at alternatives to gathering IRL. I got my Quest 1 and spent hours in AltspaceVR, whether that was finding new friends or enjoying special events. The first of which was the Reggie Watts experience, which turned into a series of performances that summer. By 2021, I had the pleasure of running into a growing amount of black social VR users in AltspaceVR like myself (known as the Black Altspacers), who infused the platform through its final years with our own culture/events as only we truly could!
“I intend for anyone who interacts with my creative endeavors to leave with something they didn't know about before.”
What interests you most about social VR?
What interests me the most about social VR is the ability to learn together. VR just by itself introduces new possibilities for education. Social VR introduces new perspectives on top of this by making each classroom audience global! The Helping Hands VRChat community comes to mind for me as an example, since each type of sign language class can have a classroom with students from across the country and different regions can have different signs for words/phrases.
What is your go-to way of expressing your creativity?
My go-to way of expression is still through marker board sketches and notepad entries that eventually turn into worlds. I tend to focus on my own subjects/topics of interest (e.g. weather/science), and whether that's direct education (Armani's Time Zone World) or indirect education (Armani's Parlour), I intend for anyone who interacts with my creative endeavors to leave with something they didn't know about before.
Who or what inspires you?
My grandfather inspires me to this day because he showed how much education matters for everyone, and that everyone can not only learn but succeed in their learning. That goes for whether they are in Acres Homes, TX, in VR, or anywhere in any part of reality!
What is the origin of your username?
My username, ArmaniXR, comes from my name plus XR. I know that's obvious (haha), so the choice I have behind XR is to be inclusive of all the versions of reality (VR/AR/MR/AV, etc) in the reality-virtuality continuum (Milgram and Kishino, 1993) that I inhabit.
How do you feel about the future of VR?
I am ultimately thrilled about the future of VR. Yes, we will have our issues inside and outside of the 3D meshes, but we will also have all of the inspiring virtual creations that shine when we all come together with our talents and our kindness.
Learn more about Armani HERE.