I am standing on a street in Syria when the bomb goes
off. My ears ring so loud I can hardly hear the screams as I stumble
through the smoke. Looking down, there’s a man cradling a crimson-soaked
loved one on the curb. Others run for cover. I pull off my virtual
reality headset.
I’ve never been to Syria. Never been in a terrorist
attack. Never experienced the confusion and fear, the loss of faith in
my species in the face of senseless violence. But now I know just a
little bit what it feels like. And it makes me want to help.
Project Syria
What if you really could walk a mile in someone’s shoes?
Shared perspective breeds understanding. Until now, though, the closest
we could come to that old saying was through video documentary. Follow
someone around long enough and you get a taste for what their life is
like. But it’s still their life.
Virtual reality represents a giant leap forward in
mankind’s propensity for compassion. You don’t just walk in someone’s
shoes, but see the world through their eyes. In essence, a virtual
reality headset is an empathy machine.
Project Syria director Nonny de la Peña
Most people think of video games or maybe immersive cinema
when they think of VR. But a burgeoning group of creators are producing
virtual reality documentaries with unprecedented ability to affect us
emotionally.
Project Syria is perhaps the most vivid to date. Its creator Nonny de la Peña tells
me “Syria is so far away from most Americans. How do you attract a
younger audience who might not pick up the newspaper to think about
these important issues? That’s the point of all good journalism.”
But what you read in the New York Times or see on CNN
pales in comparison to the power of VR journalism. It’s a term I think
we’re going to hear a lot of.
It was certainly the talk of Sundance Film Festival’s New
Frontier building, which showcases experiments in the future of cinema.
Nonny de la Peña’s VR experience “Hunger in Los Angeles”
The air is electric, not just the screen. The
claustrophobic volatility spurs me to keep looking over my shoulder to
make sure the cops aren’t closing in. Chants emanate from the
surrounding crowd. My vantage point moves along with the 360-degree
camera’s, meaning I’m not just watching this act of civil disobedience. I
feel like I’m part of it. This isn’t a documentary about the protest.
This is the protest, digitized.
“Journalism is about bringing people to an event or
something that they couldn’t attend,” says Chris Milk, the world’s
preeminent VR director. His other works likes the concert Sound & Vision demonstrated VR’s potential to unlock emotions film can’t touch.
When you’re standing on stage beside the performer Beck and the crowd
applauds, you can’t help but blush and feel bashful. His newest film Evolution Of Verse
mimics a lucid dream. You hover over a tranquil lake until a locomotive
splashes across its surface directly at you, only to bust into a
thousand birds at the moment of impact.
VICE News VR: Millions March
His collaboration with Spike Jonze “VICE News VR: Millions March”,
eschews entertainment for empathy. “Here the viewer feels transported
to that place. There’s no translation. They’re witnessing it first-hand
themselves” Milk tells me. “There’s something about this format that
touches a more emotional place in the mind and the soul.”
Perhaps it’s how the distance between our eyes and the
scene is dismantled. In the real world, there is no gap, life starts the
millimeter your cornea concludes. The intermittent space found watching
a television, computer, or mobile phone constantly reminds us to look
but not touch. Yet when you sit amongst the die-in on that VR-conjured
Manhattan street, you feel compelled to rest a reassuring hand on the
back of the protester beside you.
“I can put you closer to another human being than you normally would go in real life” Milk exclaims. His company VRSE’s app will let you watch the scene from home.
VR director Chris Milk
Millions March teleports you in amongst a crew of men
writhing on the concrete crying ‘I can’t breathe’, Garner’s last words.
You see the passion in their eyes. Their lips quivering with rage and
purpose. “If you were there you would keep a natural distance of 10 to
15 feet like everyone else” Milk says. “I’m letting you connect in that
space in a way that’s very safe.”
Because while your mind is present, your body is beyond
harm’s grasp. You can focus without worry for your own well-being. “You
sort of exist in this place without any ego” Milk explains. “You can
just feel.”
But some of the most piercing VR experiences won’t make you the victim of tragedy. They’ll make you the perpetrator.
Perspective; Chapter 1: The Party
places you at a beer-drenched college gathering. You play Brian,
seemingly just another frat guy. As your eyes drift across the party,
you come across Gina, pretty but pretty lonely, dancing by herself. You
sway together, flirt, and drink.
But fast-forward, and Brian and his buddy have discovered
Gina passed on the floor of a bedroom. For just a moment, you hope the
two of you have pure intentions as you pick her and place her up on the
bed. Then the scene turns sinister. Your friend suggests you take turns
having sex with her as he gawks at Gina’s unconscious body.
Perspective; Chapter 1: The Party
The disgust and guilt are overwhelming. I winced, stomach
churning as my character gruffly pulled off her boots. My cringing face
relaxed only slightly when the scene went dark as it gets too graphic.
The story continues as Brian and his accomplice scramble to escape the
party, catching just a glimpse of Gina’s expression of shell-shock at
the top of the stairs.
Most VR demos end with an attendant cheerily asking “How
was it?!” I was thankful that the woman who took the Oculus Rift headset
back from me said nothing. I avoided eye-contact. Left in the
exhibition room modeled after The Party, complete with keg and sagging
couch, I slinked out silently. These behaviors mirror those of true
shame. I wanted to crawl somewhere dark and disappear. Once I began to
digest the emotions, though, I wanted to mobilize against campus sexual assault.
The empathy machine works.
“Making people bear witness is effective” says de la Peña.” To make
VR journalism even more so, both Milk and de la Peña said 360-degree
cameras need to get sharper, cheaper, and more portable. Paired with
proper calls to action, simulated scenes could have a real impact on the
real world. VR won’t replace being there, but it can scale experiences
to a much wider audience.
Milk concludes “We’re starting to move out of the technical ‘wow’ phase of this and into ‘what does this mean for humanity?’”