My midterm project broadens the conceptual framework from what I originally envisioned. The planned theme was about dementia and patient with Alzheimer's disease, but as I started building the 3D environment, I found myself particularly interested in topics of memories, forgetfulness, the passage of time, and reflection. Instead of following the initial storyboard which has a very specific but made-up plot, I chose to create a surreal space that not only translates these conceptual details into something people can immerse in but also can incorporate my own narratives.

The entire space is made up of six containers, a metaphor for our brain's storage of memories. The five bottles at the periphery symbolize a past that has been largely forgotten, with only sparse "sparks" that we can recall. In the middle is the cylinder of core memory areas, where the most significant moments in my life are still vividly on loop, as we sometimes replay some impressive memories in our minds. From the bottom to the top of the floor is chronologically ordered. The bottom layer of memories from infancy is fanciful - swaddling and the crib were the sources of warmth and security, and the fox toy was a friend 7/24 accompanying me. The second floor is the teenage years. The closeness to nature and the time spent with my dog become fond memory that can never be erased. Apparently, deep memories are not always cheerful. In future floors, one might encounter some painful memories deep inside the mind.

I encountered many technical difficulties and some frustration that I sometimes felt my skills were inadequate to help me realize my aspiration, but I am very happy with what I ended up creating. I am also grateful that, during my meetings with the professor, she always encouraged me to make my work personal and explore whatever ideas I came up with. I indeed kept deviating from my original thought and constantly revised my designs. The whole process was of course tiring but very very rewarding.

For the final showcase, I plan to present my project on Oculus headset. It will be in the stationary mode that does not require too much space or any physical installation.

My midterm project “Meet me” aims to do an interactive VR experience to simulate the world experienced by Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients. Through the first-person narration of stepping into the living space of “myself”, the audience - the non-sufferers - are placed in the shoes of people with dementia (PwD) in a private environment.

I drew my inspiration from an experiential class titled Disability Studies I took in Spring 2021. Each of the students was assigned a consultant living with an impairment. I was assigned to an 87-year-old patient with AD. For the next four months, I spoke with him and his caretaker for two and a half hours weekly on Zoom. One of my biggest takeaways from this meaningful experience is that I learned about the plight of the Alzheimer's community through individual narratives, and was strongly motivated to unfold these stories and emotions in a virtual reality context. Not only because VR is capable of creating immersion and affecting the wearer’s multiple senses - the incoming sound (auditory hallucinations) and the visual environment, but it also effectively fosters empathy between storytellers and subjects and thus challenges the stereotyping or stigmatizing views.

The users will be able to clearly perceive how the degraded cognitive system and memory capacity have an impact through the environmental visuals and the voiceover. I will use Unity's 3D model to construct a disorderly or even distorted room. The room will have many objects made of meaningless shapes and lines. Among them, there are also recognizable objects that users can interact with. By picking it up or walking up to it, a memory made of real footage will emerge, sometimes fragmented or blurred. These interactions will be designed intentionally unpleasant and even uncomfortable to remove the entertaining and playful implication of interactivity. The memory clips to be collected include: a kitten snuggling up to me and wanting some scratches; singing with friends on the stage at a university event; a small child laughing and stumbling toward me. With voiceover prompts, the user triggers and collects these fragments of memory and gradually gains a more concrete understanding of his or her identity. The ending, however, has a more pessimistic implication, as the user is prompted to walk towards the mirror in the room, only to see an aged man with gray hair.