ARTSLab's Community Immersive Technology Hub (CITH) initiative was a featured booth during this year’s Bands of Enchantment outdoor music festival. The event took place on September 20th 2025, in downtown Albuquerque, and debuted a new immersive VR experience by ARTSLab's student researchers Ella Pigg and Finn Ellis.
As part of ARTSLab’s Community Immersive Technology Hub (CITH) initiative, graduate student Ella Pigg (MFA, Experimental Art & Technology) and undergraduate student Finn Ellis (Computer Science) designed and developed Neon Forge, a virtual reality experience created specifically for the event.
Bands of Enchantment is a PBS television series and internationally streamed festival in which musical performances are filmed live in downtown Albuquerque. This year’s festival highlighted the 100th anniversary of Albuquerque’s downtown Route 66 corridor. Inspired by Route 66’s iconic neon sign aesthetic, CITH created Neon Forge as a way to connect with the city’s cultural identity while offering festival attendees an immersive hands-on experience.
After signing up at the ARTSlab kiosk station, Neon Forge players are able to create their own virtual neon signs and sculptures using a variety of realistic neon colors and animated blink sequences. Creations can be set against a nighttime environment or among the foothills of the Sandia Mountains. Once participants are satisfied with their design, they can email themselves a GIF and 3D file, allowing them to share and reexperience their unique neon sculpture or even expand upon their creation into future artistic projects.
Neon Forge was built using the open-source software Open Brush as its foundation. Working with its drawing tools, Ella and Finn contributed new shaders and server-side upload features that expand the program’s capabilities. In doing so, CITH not only developed an original community-centered project for Albuquerque, but also gave back to the larger open-source XR community.
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