Osvath

Session Title: Wellness, wellbeing, and virtual reality

Speaker: Csaba Osvath, Visiting Professor, University of South Florida

Watch the session: https://app.knowmia.com/tp0K 

Short description: This multimedia presentation offers a first-person perspective and evaluation of my engagement with a collection of wellness/wellbeing experiences in virtual reality. Ranging from virtual fitness apps to guided meditation in virtual reality, I share how VR contributes to human flourishing through immersive and interactive experiences. As an early adopter of VR, I have been actively engaging this technology and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, VR played a prominent role to maintain mental and physical wellbeing. In the past 4 years, I have been actively using, exploring, and evaluating wellness-related VR applications on various VR hardware (Oculus Quest 1 and 2, Oculus Rift S, Samsung Odyssey HMD, and the Valve Index) and platforms (Steam VR, Microsoft Mixed Reality, Oculus VR). This presentation also features video footage, recorded in VR to offer a 2D representation of the user’s experien

Bio: Csaba Osvath is a visiting professor at the University of South Florida, pursuing literacy studies with a special focus on qualitative methods, extended reality (XR), and arts-based research. Prior to his graduate studies in the United States, Csaba studied theology and horticulture in Hungary and Wales.