Virtual Reality
Empathy; Rendered through modern day technology.
Receiver becomes the co-creator of the story; technology and empathy’ which are increasingly becoming two separate entities as the very acceleration in technology adding unparalleled challenging sums of complexity causing our own emotional demise with every passing day. Emotional Intelligence Quotient needs to be improved in humans to function as empathetic beings on this planet, square.
Similarly, the hypothesis of my thesis is to evoke the sensibility to implant the empathy patterns in technology propagation. I proposed the harmonious use of the olden (Old+Golden) key mediums of storytelling to create a new interactive experience in which the viewer/user will have the privilege to change the characters & atmospheres through their imaginary input, which could be metaphorical or as literal. So, the human-machine interaction can be proved friendly & emotionally compatible.
Statement
The essential requirement of empathy is putting aside our culture, learning, opinions, knowledge, and worldview persistently in to understanding other individuals’ experiences of things that are meaningful and have insightful meanings attached to it.
If the acceleration in technology has a meaning for our own kind and their relations keep constructing to challenging sums of complexity, then through the use of necessity, we as being part of the human race must try to intensify the progression of empathy to follow the acceptable measures of effect through empathy in technology. If this is not done, we will gradually, but surely, become unfit to continue to function as human beings, thus bringing our own demise.
Problem Identification
As the world is becoming a global village, many new ideas and inventions are being introduced. The aspects of the world are changing since the introduction of technological forces, being prevalent in the world today. There is no specific problem that cannot be solved through the use of modern day technology. For example; the first ever innovation in the world was the introduction of the wheel, to reduce force, energy, and time.
From the invention of the wheel, next came the industrial revolution. Later on, the next great wave innovation surpassed every single invention made in this world; the introduction of information technology (computers – internet – networking).
As mentioned above, technology has provided solutions to a number of problems, but some problems have led to a greater deal of problems. Some problems include, laziness, lack of social skills, traditional learning (notebooks and pen and paper techniques), the birth of introverts, the rise of narcissism , privacy concerns, absence of confidence, and more importantly lack of empathy.
The above-mentioned problems are interconnected with one another. As a whole branch, the problems are infecting one particular issue, which is the extinction of empathy.
Empathy is basically the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Moreover, technological advancements will reform in the coming future. It will be a continuous rhythm that will not stop evolving. Hence, empathy should be taken parallel to technological progressions. Thus, technological advancements are made for human beings, and human beings require empathy in order to survive.
Solution
The aim of my case study is to be focused upon the portrayal of emotional empathy through the art of storytelling. Visuals and sounds are the key elements of virtual reality simulation. But as for my undertaking of the concept, I am combining the older key mediums of story telling such as novels, comic books, oral story telling, and movies to create a new cinematic experience in which the user will have the privilege to be the co-creator of that part of an experience where they can visualize the character and the setting through their imagination. There would be no forceful act towards the visuals except the action visuals, which would be seen as metaphorical as well as literal.
The combination of my storytelling would be entirely based on sound effects, action visuals, music, and third person narration.
The story, which is written, is to be used by an individual to imagine himself or herself in a world that is not existent, to make that come into existence.
The hypothesis of this is to take technology and empathy parallel with each other, which are two separate entities, to be taken as tools to create an extravagant experience of a journey.
Research
What is empathy and its types?
Empathy by definition, means the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. There are three different branches; Cognitive, Emotional, and Compassionate Empathy.
Cognitive empathy, also known as perspective taking or logical reasoning. Cognitive empathy is also considered as not being a part of empathy, because this involves a person being able to put himself or her into someone else’s place and see their perspective, but without engaging with their emotions.
Emotional empathy is quite literal in a sense where a person feels the other person’s emotions. Emotional empathy can also become overwhelming if the empathiser has no control over their emotions, which can lead to emotional distress. Hence, it can backfire from which this cannot be considered as emotional empathy.
Compassionate empathy is a combination of cognitive and emotional empathy from which the empathiser can further understand deeply and finds a way to resolve a problem by taking action.
Origins of transformative informative technology
The first and foremost great increase of the transformative informative technology began with the birth of the written language, which allowed different opinions to be in record and referenced later in case of further elaboration by any individual, enabling an individual to experience and process thoughts of another at any given time.
The next movement came with the introduction of the printing press and the commercialisation of the vernacular, everyday language; literature considered being a mass medium. Great extensive ideas, which had great influence, were distributed and promoted through the printed stories being considered as novels, which was the first boundless mass entertainment medium.
The co-creator of the story is himself the one who is actually the receiver, thus changing the course of history through the art of storytelling.
Emotional empathy & interaction
Emotional empathy occurs through interaction, but it does not necessarily mean a human-to-human interaction.
An experience can also be embedded towards the empathiser while there is no human contact in reality, because an experience or story can be recorded through written text, which can be said about the previous technological advancements such as novels.
Holistic evolution of storytelling mediums
Storytelling is a natural phenomenon amongst living beings since the existence of mankind. Storytelling evolved from visual cave paintings to language (verbal and visual), which led to oral representation or storytelling, which further evolved towards written text, which was a form of recorded experiments that later on transformed into moving visuals or movies.
Likewise, the birth of comics came as well. And now in our current time, storytelling has been modulated towards the latest form of technological advancement, which is the VR (Virtual reality) simulation.
What is Virtual Reality Simulation?
Virtual reality simulation is based on computer-generated representation of the moments that can be experienced literally at any given time or place through the eyes of the experiencer. The most current and advanced medium of storytelling is virtual reality. Virtual reality simulation came into existence as a form of an empathy machine.
Ideation through my research
The focus of my research led me to create an emotional empathy experience in virtual reality simulation, through which the user can have the privilege to be the co-creator of that tale, by visualising only a few aspects excluding the setting and the characters’ appearances. This can be achieved through third person narration, which would be a voice over, sound effects, music, and action based visuals, which will create a transition in which the users can use their imagination along the lines of the story, just like how a novel plays its role. Hence, the unique part of my work in VR would be to give the privilege to the viewer to be the co-creator of my story.
My view about the technological advancements is not pessimistic but rather optimistic of how this new form of cinema can be a part of a new storytelling method by combining the old mediums of communication, which are novels, comic books, movies, and oral storytelling, creating a brand new way of seeing things in a virtual reality simulation.
Methodology
Evolution
The initial idea started off with my topic, elaborating on empathy. Then deduced towards the three factors of empathy, as mentioned above; cognitive, emotional, and compassionate empathy. I started working towards emotional empathy. Emotional empathy is active through the possibility of communication. Communication is all about narratives or storytelling.
As the process began to direct towards storytelling, I commenced towards its mediums. There are four mediums of storytelling; oral storytelling, novels, comic books, and movies. I have combined all these mediums and chose their elements to create a new form of cinema in which the receiver can also be a part of the narrative by visualising the setting and the character’s appearance, thus co-creating the story. I then created info graphs of those mediums and their elements, and chose visual effects, music (another dimension of storytelling; also can become complimentary with visuals, to create context), voice overs, being third person narration, co-creating process, and non-verbal visuals, being the sound effects.
Storytelling mediums' infographs
Now after completing this process, I took those elements and embedded them towards virtual reality simulation. The reason for making the narrative in virtual reality simulation is, because technology has been evolving and progressing on limitless speed. Hence, empathy should be taken parallel with technological advancements, as there is more human to machine interactions nowadays. Another reason is that with the help of virtual reality simulation, the information would be received clearly to the user as there would be fewer distractions and the users will experience the situation quite literally, as of being able to perceive and understand by placing themselves in another person’s point of view.
So the progression of my idea’s evolution is empathy, emotional empathy, communication, storytelling, combination of storytelling mediums and its elements, and finally virtual reality simulation.
Execution Process
Phase 1 : Virtual Reality Presentation
In this phase, I created a 360 degrees video in an on-sale house that I rented, specifically for this video shoot. The reason was to give a 3 dimensional viewpoint of a space to the receiver, because my phase 2, which is a short film consists of no certain location environments visually, only visual effects. So, to actually show a constant environment, this 360 degrees video was shot.
There were a few important reasons of why this virtual presentation was important.
1. The user can see the work process virtually, with visual effects inside of it.
2. I was explaining the work to the users, virtually, while having a direct connection with those individuals, and them experiencing the recorded moment quite literally as if they were present with me at that very time and place.
3. The idea was to execute a paperless design thesis so that my work would become everlasting in the future. In order to do so, I only need to upload the work on any website, where a virtual reality platform is already present. So anybody can have access to my actual work at any given time or place. The only thing temporal in my work was the display, which was dismantled as soon as the exhibition ended. But fortunately my work will live on endlessly, because the process, the evolution, the short film, and the hypothetical proposal will not be tampered, as everything was executed digitally. Also in this virtual presentation, sound, first person narration, visual effects, video footage, noise cancellation editing, the script, and acting were included to make it as an entire composition.
Disclaimer: The presentation video on youtube is not available in 360 view, as it was exported in 1920x1080 dimensions back in 2018. I used THETA ( Software App ) to view it in 360 dimensions. If you like to know more, prior to what I spoke about in my presentation you can view my presentation script.
Phase 2 : The imprisonment of Francis Mcguire ( Short Film )
In this phase of my storytelling development process, I used two practicing methods to form my fictional story; Automatic writing, in which a person writes on paper with his/her thoughts. And creating a word salad, which method is derived from schizophrenia. Word salad began as a term used in psychiatry to describe the nonsensical syntax of the mentally ill. I'm not mentally ill. Just saying... LOL
So I started off writing two words, thunder and Francis. I placed those letters as one and began generating more words out of those limited letters. This method helped me define my content of what the story would be like, such as the characters, the setting and the genre. Thus, I wrote a story called “ The Imprisonment of Francis McGuire”. This narrative illustrates how Francis’ life is filled with tragedies and hope.
The visuals of this film were limited so that the user can co-create the story with his/her imagination. The intention of leaving out the setting and the characters’ visuals would trigger the receiver to be attentive and also not get distracted by the fantastical locations or the beauty of the characters. In addition, the limited visuals will keep the user more inclined towards the narrative and its development. This is the unique part of my film, which gives the privilege to the viewer to be the co-creator of the story, just like how a novel plays its role.
Furthermore, the making of this short film consists of music, sound, visual effects, third person voice over, video manipulations, selfcreated sound, visual effects, and script editing.
My constraints, while making the short film
There were a lot of experimentations, while going through the process of understanding VR technology and devices. There were a few constraints, while researching and understanding the concepts, for executing my ideas.
1. Lack of knowledge in coding and finding a resource in a short period of time, whose services would not be expensive, and I only had about 21 days to make this happen, as most of my time and effort went into dissertation, research and experimentations. Roughly around 2 months.
2. Trying to come up with a way to execute in 360 view, without having the right amount of skills to make it happen.
3. I took a risk, while choosing Virtual Reality Simulation as my final medium to execute. I had no idea initially, that I would deriving the concept of empathy in VR.
How did I overcame through these constraints?
As coming into my fourth year of design school, as a creative, I learned a few things along the way. One in particular experience that always motivated me and gave me energy to move forward is the fact that you have to always fall in love with the process of doing things. It's about the journey that matters, not the outcome. Even though If I had messed it up, I would have flunked. Yikes!
But yes, that idea motivated me to move forward with this risky execution. So, first I started organising my strategies better than it was previously made. And I started out listing things what I had to do and how to do it in this short period of time.
I gathered up my friends, who helped me along the way with their knowledge to certain domains of creativity, that I did not posses. Yes, the second wisdom I got is to acknowledge the fact that you cannot be good in everything. Jack of all trades, master of some. Okay, back to how I overcame through this mess I got myself into.
Two of my friends helped me with the voice overs, sound editing, and recordings. While, my other friends helped me with adobe after effects, my worst enemy, and got me through those crazy amount of data organising and VR mode editing.
So, while I was experimenting with VR headsets and gyro sensors in my phone, I came across two softwares. One was Theta, which I have mentioned above, that helps convert videos, and makes it easily available to view into 360 formats, if exported in the right dimensions. And two, VR media player that supports android phones, with the same functionality as theta software for computers.
The hardest part of all was creating a film, without the help of a 360 camera, as my concept did not have any particular locations or faces of characters. So what I did that turned out to be a huge success in my experimentation was, embedding my elements and effects, creating a 2D based video with using black colour as my negative space and aligning my work centrally, giving the software to stretch the video in 360!
Disclaimer: This short film on youtube is not available in 360 view, as it was exported in 1920x1080 dimensions back in 2018. I used VR Media Player ( Android App ) to view it in 360 dimensions. If you like to know more, prior to what I the short film was all about, you can view my short film script.
Photograph taken at 4 am, two weeks before my thesis
Phase 3 : Hypothetical Proposal
In this phase, I made a flat 2D video presentation, which explains my hypothetical proposal of how a film can be interactive by upgrading the co-creative advancement within technology, if this idea is taken forward in the upcoming years. The narrative would have to be translated as a form of game, where the user can have the ability to decide what path to take to lead towards the characters’ ultimate ending. So, by enabling this feature, the tale would have different endings, depending on what the user chooses to evolve the story. Therefore, the receiver will have the power to co-create the story with technological advancements. This means if there are a hundred people watching a film in a virtual reality simulation, they will have hundred different options to end the same film.
Moreover, in this phase, I have also explained about the softwares, such as blender, unity, and unreal engine, of how these tools can be used to execute this feature. Budget and equipment were explained in this video proposal as well, which includes, the budget for 3D modelers, developers, equipment such as, the oculus rift or the HTC vive, writers, and art directors. Basically, this phase explains what kind of team members are needed in order to make this happen.
Disclaimer: The budget set out in this presentation was taken back in 2018. The new budget varies according to our current times. You can watch this presentation by clicking the button below. And if you would like to read what was said in this presentation, you can view my hypothetical proposal script.
Thesis Display
The display consisted of one personal computer, two virtual reality headsets, two smartphones that support gyro sensors, two headphones, two LCDs, one sound system, and one printed abstract. The intention for keeping the display black was, because of the short film consisting of great tragedies. Consequently, the whole display’s environment was all-dark to compliment the context of the film.
Users and their feedback.
There were approximately more than 450 users that engaged with my work and their responses were quite remarkable except a few who felt uncomfortable for two reasons:
1. Some were claustrophobic. They felt quite congested while wearing the device, because they were experiencing this for the first time.
2. Some could not digest the film, because it was too harsh for them to digest and some were not able to view it properly, because of their eyesight. Eyesight was one of the factors, which could have led to become a very big worst case scenario, if I had multiple users with eyesight issue.
Overall, everybody enjoyed the movie, the presentation, and the hypothetical proposal. The most startling moment was when the users brought a lot of their friends and family to experience the journey of the film and majority of them remembered my character’s name, Francis.
Conclusion
My hypothesis was all about virtual reality simulation’s experience, that the viewers may have a powerful response to have a direct connection or a close up of an emotional character’s experience through visuals, sound effects, music, and narration. And after conducting that experiment through my display set up, it was quite a success!
Out of all the users, twenty of them failed to understand the concept of co-creating the narrative, but the rest of them understood it immediately, and the image of the main character was different to each and every individual, that became the highlight of my hypothesis, which was giving the user the power to co-create the story.
To conclude, the results depicted that this thesis report has created and shown an emotional response from the viewers, thus clearly identifying that empathy was successfully embedded within technological advancements, in this case, virtual reality simulation.