Social Virtual Reality�

Project Concept

Isa Vento and Elizabeth Ferguson

• Intro
• Audience
• Characters
• Stage Design
• 2 Storyboard Ideas

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Intro

Why

• Explore why eco-justice mattered to historical figures from the past.
• Consider what you think is important about climate change today.

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How

• Embodiment of historical figures
• Participatory theater strategies
• Reconstruction of environments

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Goals

• Create a space for curiosity about the environment.
• Help people understand why activists cared so much about eco-justice.
• Ask people to have a conversation to ask open questions about the environment and what they think.�
• Make people feel closer, like they have been in on something together.
• To successfully make people feel curious and vulnerable in a safe way.

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Audience

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Who is it for?�

Definite audience

• ITP Show
• Media Arts Festival
• A common, shared public space�

Potential audiences

• A museum
• People in disenfranchised areas affected by the environment.
• Headquarters of ExxonMobil

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Can we create something that aims towards the last two groups? Or would these be two different pieces?

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Characters

Rachel Carson

Damu Smith

Berta Carceras

Chico Mendes

Stage Design

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Physical Space

• Black box theater-like?
• Props that match what is in the VR space?
• Light bulb that turns on and off in physical room during VR piece -- make VR look beautiful and elegant.

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Just a reference to ITP Classroom with nicer lighting

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Potential Aesthetic

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VR Space: Options like photogrammetry, 360 Video, or collages of images/videos from these character’s lives, etc. are helpful because they can be archival, which supports our theme of figures from the past. It can also take less time than modelling.

Sound: Voice-Over & Experiential sound feedback

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Playtests

We did three in the last two days.

Playtest 1: Voices of Now, Voices from the Past

Onboarding

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• Three players stand facing each other with a tall stand in the center�
• Told they will learn about activists from the past, bring something back with them, and talk about what they learned with each other.

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Playtest 1: Voices of Now, Voices from the Past

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Scene 1 - Become characters

• They put on goggles
• Enter individual spaces, embody characters, learn who they are, pick up one object, bring it back with them to the others to learn about each other.

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Scene 2 - Share as characters

• Instructed to put the object on the stand.
• To explain to each other the object they brought, and what it signifies.

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Offboarding - Discuss as themselves

• Take goggles off. Real objects are there on the stand. Asked to talk about what the experience meant to them as themselves.

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Playtest 3: Participatory Group Experience

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Onboarding - 5 Participants, 2 VR headsets

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Stage 1: Intros and Agreements

�Introduction is given to all participants on ecojustice and Rachel Carson, Damu Smith, Berta Caceres. They learn about what they did, and a specific climate issue they addressed.

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They will be given a summary of what is to come and asked if they are okay with: Physical contact, Emotionally Triggering Experience

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Stage 2: Collectively decide roles

�They enter a room and are prompted to decide b/w themselves who will be The Reader, two Immersants, and two Supports.

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Stages 3 & 4: Experience & Aftermath

Stage 3: Immersion

�The Reader is given a script with three quotes they must read out, pertaining to each scene (pertaining to each activist) which they read out at the end of each scene that plays out.

They also guide the Support, who will be ‘comforting’ the immersant. The Immersants are experiencing the VR.

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Sound is heard by all participants. Immersants’ view is on the TV screen.

Three scenes play out:`

- Field of Pesticides

-River Dam

-Smog

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Stage 4: Aftermath

�When the VR experience is over, the participants are prompted to draw a picture together, and add one word of their interpretation of the experience next to it, and paste it on the wall of the room.

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Q&A