Much of the feedback from our original
pitch involved the suggestion that we should move away from science-fiction
elements and instead focus on “reality”. As such, for the game element of the
project, we decided to create a virtual space that was a recognizable area in
London (the project was, after all, meant for those people that live in London)
for the user to walk around and experience – in the end we settled on Regent’s
Park, and established this setting by filming the iconic panoramic view of
London from Primrose Hill. Aside from the game element, we also filmed general
shots of present day London to anchor the viewer in the current time before
moving on to the game and the “future” of London’s great park.
Interactive cinema “gives the viewer the
option to influence the storyline to some degree” (Tanak, 2015). However, we
chose to allow the user to not only influence the storyline, but also the
visual space around them. In selecting certain personal responses to
environment-related questions during the game, the virtual reality space would
shift and morph into something different. This was done using the appearance of
visual graphics depicting negative images such as glitches, drought and fire,
and by causing the audial space to become distressing – a shift away from the
nature sounds and heartbeats the user could originally hear. This makes for
quite an uncomfortable experience, and the performative aspect to the game
links the space directly to the user, and challenges their perception of the
way they live in the space (i.e. London).
We were also aware that the shifting of a
familiar and comfortable space, such as the beautiful and unassuming Regent’s
Park, to a negative visual and audial experience can be very confrontational
and emotional for the viewer. This is best demonstrated by Ørsted’s (2017)
experimental film about climate change and the way it will change what we
believe to be “home” (i.e. the house in which we live), associating negative
feelings with what was once a peaceful and cosy place by linking it to the
larger ecosystem – our planet. As such, we knew that morphing the place
Londoners call “home” (in this case, a general area rather than a specific
house) into something unrecognizable and terrifying would elicit an emotional
response that connected the viewers to the wider problem at hand. We hoped to
prevent the distancing that certain traditional climate change films incur –
for example, it is harder for us to relate to the melting of the Arctic
icebergs when compared to the destruction of the place in which we ourselves
live. Therefore we hope to have demonstrated the desire to exploit the use of
space in order to elicit a specific, personal,
and emotional response in the user.
We used this shifting of space to help the
user take notice of their individual agency and potential to change the path of
climate change. As such we believe we used space in a meaningful and
challenging way, by causing the user to be self-reflective and self-critical
with a heavy dose of self-awareness (due to the performative aspect of the
project), which is not super common in game-style interactive media – for
example, Tanak further explains that for a person to be “immersed” in a game,
one must become less aware of their environment and their self-awareness must
decline. However in our case, we hope to have challenged this notion by instead
demonstrating how self-awareness can be of paramount importance in order to
fully appreciate the aims of the project. However we would also hope that the
user would be fully immersed in our virtual reality environment – which would
therefore be in conflict with an increased amount of self-awareness. It may be
difficult to turn off, in our minds, the awareness of the space we physically
inhabit and not our own self-reflective thoughts. I am comfortable saying that
I believe the nature of our film means one can be immersed while being self
reflective; however, if not, it is an interesting gap to be bridged in the
future.
Bibliography
Tanak, N. 2015. ‘Interactive Cinema. A mini
guide for understanding and producing a 360-degree interactive movie.’ MediaLAB
Amsterdam.
Filmography
Ørsted 2017. Love your home
[Video File], retrieved from http://loveyourhome.orsted.com/#en
