VRAD at Open Government District 2026

Fear of heights? Fear of spiders? Fear of …?

On Sunday we presented the VRAD project at the "Offenes Regierungsviertel", an event where numerous Saxon ministries open their doors and invite visitors to take a look behind the scenes of state government, with a broad program spanning culture, politics, research, technology, and much more.

While most VR setups for exposure therapy focus on a single user immersed in a virtual scene, our ViewR-based approach takes a different direction: we use HMDs to make XR a medium in which experiences can truly be shared. This means there is always more than one user. Whether we selectively introduce content into the space between us (for example, a spider) or transition together into a virtual environment, such as one involving extreme heights, we jointly experience and perceive it.

On Sunday, participants could test their courage in the face of extreme heights, encounter our various (albeit virtual) animals, or visit our fear gallery: a pilot exploring personalized fear-inducing scenarios using prompted, AI-generated content running on TU Dresden’s HPC infrastructure (inspired by our work 10.1016/j.janxdis.2026.103150).

The demo was presented by Ruben Pratzka, Lorenz Hoffmann, Hannes Reinhold, and Florian Schier, with support from our friends at the EKFZ for Digital Health.

Many thanks to everyone who supported us on site, and to all the visitors who were brave enough to give it a try!