What is Weiv?

Weiv is an interactive media platform for enhancing live performances. It allows a group of people to act as a “visual band” that can play to live music. With Weiv, people move Wii Remotes to the beat of the music, creating animations or exploring a virtual scene on a projection screen.  As I’ve mentioned before, this allows people to express themselves visually the same way they do musically when singing.

Here are a few of the features:

Engage through live interactivity

Because people are involved in creating the visuals live, the entire audience is engaged. The performers create, while the rest of the audience experiences the same benefit of live visuals as they do for live music.

Group interaction

Use up to 7 Wii Remotes to allow an entire group of people to collaborate, just like a visual band.

Videogame technology & media

Weiv uses technology found in modern videogames to support advanced graphics and interaction. This medium especially connects with youth because videogames are their heart language.

More info

Looking for more information or still confused?  Head over to the Weiv pre-order page to get an idea of what the platform consists of, read about more features, and of course pre-order if you’re interested in speaking the heart language of a new generation, and/or if you’re interested in supporting independent videogame development.  I’m applying for a grant through the Iowa Department of Economic Development, and the biggest chance at getting the grant would be to get pre-orders.  Help me make this dream a reality!

What is Interactive Visual Worship?

Interactive visual worship is a form of worship where people can use videogame technology to worship visually along with a band that’s playing music. It can be hard to understand at first if you’re not very familiar with forms of both Christian worship media and videogame media. I don’t blame you, so I’ll try to elaborate on both!

Christian Worship Media

During a modern Christian church worship service, on the surface level you will see a band playing music on a stage in front of the congregation, and the congregation sings along to the music. These days people know what to sing by looking at white words on black projected onto screens above or to the side of the band. Some churches have also begun using abstract animated backgrounds behind the words (or on different screens altogether), referred to as “motion backs.” Other churches even try to include less abstract animations, such as video clips of nature or people interacting in a meaningful way. In terms of the media that’s going on, it’s similar to live visuals at a rock concert.

So the goal is to express some faith-based message through film/animation during the musical part of worship – this is visual worship, or rather a specific form of visual worship. Since it is about expression, artists are needed to express that message. They choose the clips and fade between them live to the music in order to create meaning, similar to how a DJ works with turntables. Therefore, these people are referred to as worship VJs. So you could say that these worship VJs are worshipping visually by creating meaning from video clips in sync with a worship band playing music. Again, like VJs would at a rock concert/club. And there’s almost always only one worship VJ doing visuals, just like you usually have one DJ playing in a band or at a club.

Videogame Media

Interactive visual worship takes that idea, combines it with videogame technology and media, and allows a group of people to worship visually at the same time. Now when I use the word videogames, you might think of Tetris or Doom or Halo or Peggle, but that’s not quite what I’m talking about. I think of videogames as a mixture of two unique mediums – a specific medium that doesn’t really have a name yet, and games. At the heart of this unnamed medium is a virtual, fictional, interactive system running on a computer.

This system takes input, computes it, and displays an output that changes based on the input given. It’s fictional in the sense that the system represents something artistic; it’s not tax software, but a virtual world created by an artist that you can explore and learn from. It’s a world that speaks to you on a very human level, but because it’s interactive, some videogame designers describe it as a world that you can have a conversation with.

Interactive visual worship uses this unnamed medium. Keep in mind that it’s a unique medium that’s distinct from games, so it does not include winning & losing, game-like challenges, or points. But it still uses interactive systems or environments. These could be made up of a series of scribbles that move around, geometric shapes that appear to be alive, or an earthly world that looks like a painting or photograph.

What is it Like in Practice?

In the real world, where culture exists, this takes the form of using wireless devices like a Wii remote to interact with videogame-like environments during a church service. And the visuals appear on a screen for the congregation to see, just like existing visual worship media.

I can hear it now…”What?!  Playing videogames during church?!” Well, kind of. Though it’s not that different than mixing beats during church or painting during church. It’s a medium, just like other things that are experienced on Sunday morning. For interactive visual worship, it’s designed to be a communal activity for at least 6 people, like adding a visual band to the music one.

I’m working on a demo video that I’ll post soon; hopefully it will be provide some clearer idea of what this is all about. Basically at this point I have a few environments that I can switch between. It’s a polished prototype. More info to come.