The wait is finally over. After receiving an overwhelming and deeply impressive volume of submissions from visionary creators across the globe, we are thrilled to unveil the Official Selection for the inaugural AWE USA 2026 Art Festival.
These selected works will be presented in Long Beach in the heart of the AWE Expo from June 15–18, 2026.
If you are an XR artist, work with narrative XR or represent a studio you can apply for a super discounted artist pass: Apply to program
by Skill Lab
What Oto loves most is to lie on his hammock eating the fruits of the single tree of his little world. This peaceful calm is disturbed by the fall of a small spacecraft from which Exo, an hyperactive and bulky cosmonaut, comes out. Communication and cohabi-tation between the two new roommates turn out to be difficult, nay impossible.
by TARGO
For the first time, true crime podcasting meets the art of miniature model-making in Crafting Crimes. This immersive mixed-reality series lets you reconstruct history’s most infamous crime scenes and unsolved murders, guided by host and miniaturist Carol Rasaphangthong.
by TARGO
Step into history with this groundbreaking interactive documentary. Dive into the untold story of a D-Day combat cameraman, through the moving journey of his daughter piecing together the legacy he never shared. This 20-minute experience blends cinematic storytelling with immersive technologies to bring the past back to life. A TARGO original documentary, in collaboration with TIME Studios. Exclusively on Apple Vision Pro.
by Orgánica Digital
Future Codex is a transmedia project exploring the future through ancestral futurism. Co-created with Colombian indigenous communities, it transcends utopia and dystopia where magic and technology converge. Using VR and AR, we challenge linear time to propose worlds where spirituality meets intergalactic travel. We weave ancestral wisdom into a habitable tomorrow, envisioning a future defined not by fear or resignation, but by new ways of perceiving reality and possibility.
by TACIT
In The End is a haptic-centric VR narrative where participants assume the role of Death. Using vibrotactile gloves, players interpret heartbeat rhythms to navigate frozen dioramas of life’s final moments. This visceral experience explores the physical reality of mortality, making every narrative choice a tangible, felt responsibility.
by Wild Sounds of Wales
One oak. A thousand lives. 'Wild Sounds of Wales: Life in the Trees' is an 8-minute seated VR360 experience fusing an innovative concert orchestral work composed by Owain Llwyd, performed by the Welsh National Opera Orchestra with wildlife soundscapes and 360 degree visuals from Dinefwr National Nature Reserve. A portrait of resilience directed by Jacinth Latta, with spatial audio by Axel Drioli and visuals by Domonic White.
by Studio PHI
Techno Sapiens is a live interactive XR performance by Karina Márquez Caballero, combining voice, electronic music, analog tools, real-time VR, and AR. It traces life from unicellular organisms and prehispanic gods to humans approaching collective consciousness. Shape-shifting multicultural archetypes, magical figures, and multilingual songs transform the stage, letting the audience witness physical and digital worlds being born together.
by Blimey VR Studios inc
The year is 2049 and you are Natalie Ramirez, a member of a mission to Mars that’s so fruitless, it could signal the end of space exploration. Shockingly, days before your scheduled return to Earth, you discover a reservoir of subsurface water that resurrects your mission. But when you tell your daughter you have to stay on Mars indefinitely, she goes into hiding, leaving a trail of alarming clues. With your dream and your family pulling you in opposite directions, which path will you choose?
by INVR.SPACE GmbH
During the 19th century, industrialist André Godin built the Familistère in Guise. With this dream city he brought to life, he paved the way for a “concrete utopia”, putting astonishing social innovations into practice. By going back in time to the project’s origins, Godin invites you to discover the resources you will need to provide to the residents in order to build “Le Palais” together with them. Implicit in this is a reflection on the place of humanity in our societies.
by Ferryman Collective
Uncanny Lounge: Rifft’s Interlude is a theatricalized narrative adaptation of the interactive VRChat world Uncanny Lounge. The work blends guided live performance, musical interaction, symbolic spatial storytelling, and animated environmental transformation as audiences travel together through three harmonic rooms and a final ascension. The underlying world also supports self-guided exploration and participatory music-making rooted in themes of love, unity, peace, and action.
by Unframed Collection
In this animated, interactive VR experience, we walk in Ida’s shoes, a 72-year-old pianist living with dementia. A Long Goodbye is a poetic experience about the long goodbye of two lovers who shared a life together.
by XRPediatrics at Yale
Year of the Cicadas is a virtual reality experience about my journey after the passing of my 6-year-old son, Cody, in 2004. Shortly after his burial, millions of 17-year Brood X cicadas, emerged in the cemetery, enveloping me. The experience that felt unworldly, yet perfectly fitting. It was as though the cicadas were there to comfort me in my grief. In 2021, when the cicadas re-emerged, I joined them at my son’s gravesite, reflecting on what it meant to still be his mother, beyond death.
by CurioDynamo
Biophonic is an immersive experience for Snap Spectacles exploring a future where people and plants can communicate through sound, gesture, and voice. Users engage with a responsive plant form, imagining new ways of connecting with the natural world. This is a newly developed Spectacles version, expanding the project with enhanced interactivity and speech recognition.
by Superposition XR Studio
When you watch a particle it acts like a particle. But when you look away, it does a whole other thing. This story explores modes of experiencing the strange quantum basis of an everyday life. It journeys through split déja-vu, Schrödinger’s hamster and the clouds of possibilities that are hiding just beyond our reach. This is a documentary about the fabric of reality in which Anne Jeppesen, like a silent observer, rewatches all the ways in which we humans make sense of the world.
by Solo Artist, in collaboration with Viverse & the recipient of a Creator Grant in 2025
The Last Stanza is a WebXR puzzle narrative set in a surreal, social world of sculpture, sound, and poetry. Players explore, climb, and fly to collect six hidden stanzas bound to symbolic artifacts—unlocking a final poem. Blending introspection with shared presence, the work invites reflection on where the soul resides: in what we feel, perceive, or leave behind.
