Weekly Writing
Week1
In the speech “What I Learned from Spending a Week in Virtual Reality”, the speaker talks about his digital life and daily feelings when immersed in a VR environment in details. In a week, his perception of the VR environment changed and developed day by day. In the beginning, he felt new to the digital world, with “five senses” mobilized. Then feeling isolated, he began to seek for communications with other people, finding communities and participating in activities in this virtual world, at the same time having his “nature to interact” fulfilled. After several days, he found himself “disassociated with the physical world”, perceiving the digital world as the physical one, having difficulty adapting to his real life, as well as having his digital life dominating thoughts and dreams. At the end of the experience, he saw the helpful aspect of VR technology. He proposes that taking advantage of the immersive simulations created by VR, knowledge can be presented “through experience”, meaning that VR can be useful in education.
I haven’t tried this kind of experiment before, but his description of experience is so vivid that I could imagine how one’s perceptions could be shaped and change over time in a week in VR. But it’s at the same time hard to imagine, as everything in VR is far more complicated than I could think of from verbal descriptions. Among his experience, the “disassociation with the physical world” made me think a lot. People in the virtual world could feel disassociated because of its genuine and immersive simulation, which makes them feel that they are actually experiencing everything in the real life. If it’s the original goal for VR technology, then from the speaker’s experience, the goal is achieved. Also, for those VR applications that seek for genuine user experience like gaming, entertainment and education, this disassociation helps a lot. However, this “genuine experience” could do harm to users when it comes to some situations. For example, there’re several cases of sexual assaults in VR. Victims feel violated and attacked by others’ behaviors, just like those assaults are conducted on their real body. So it’s hard to give an actual position regarding the genuine experience created in VR, but there’s still a lot to do with its development, regarding its direction of development, new regulations in virtual world, etc.
Week 2
In his speech “Interior Design and Environment Art: Mastering Space, Mastering Place”, the speaker talked about concepts and principles in interior design, and how those principles could be applied to VR scene establishment. What inspired me most is the three concepts he mentioned under “orientation”, which are “identity”, emphasized through iconic elements, “structure”, established by repetition of patterns, “meaning”, filled with players’ personal memories. All together, they make the scene recognizable and impressive for players.
Those concepts made me think of the real world. They show exactly how I perceive, navigate through and recognize a new place in reality. For example, when I first came to NYU Shanghai, though everything is organized in a building, I still felt confused. But soon I got familiar with the interior. There are featured lounges on different floors which make each floor unique and distinguishable. Elevators separate different areas and establish structures that enable me to find classrooms easily... As for the Abu Dhabi campus, there are lots of buildings and they are even built on different levels (floors). It was easy to get lost. However, when I see the palm trees and the campus center behind, I know that I’m in the center of the campus. When approaching the residence buildings, there are identical window patterns and arrangements, which make the buildings recognizable... Also, over time, my personal memories are associated with specific places on campus. I clearly remember places where I usually have final examinations, stay overnight for projects, take a nap between classes, and so on.
In VR, how players explore a new world is just like that in reality. A VR environment that pays close attention to those principles is likely to be more interactive and attractive for players to explore. So the speech also made me think about my own project and what I should take into consideration when designing and creating a VR world.
Moreover, real world interior design is strong connected with that in the VR world. Those helpful techniques and principles could also be applied to VR games and experience design. Therefore, virtual and reality are not separable in a way that we can always find a virtual application of real world issues, techniques, or theories in general in the VR world.
Week 3
18 Sep, 2022
I don’t have much experience with VR. But the theories provided in this week’s EWRL made a lot of sense to me. I will show my understanding and questions of those theories with reference to my own experience with VR sports games.
The two presentations from Immersive Design Summit mainly focus on VR environmental storytelling. Actually, for simple VR sports games, they also involve storytelling, in which the gaming conditions, rules, instructions are provided or conveyed to the players. In the video “Telling Stories in Spaces Without Saying Anything Out Loud”, the speaker suggests not to “put in extra stuff because nobody will notice it” and not to “put in texts”. It’s undeniable that too much stuff makes players tired and overwhelmed. But it’s also essential to clarify the term “extra”. It not necessarily deals with the number of items in an environment. For example, there are a lot of jellyfishes in Virtural Leonardo's Submarine, which are not directly associated with the exhibition itself. But they are not “extra stuff”, since they help create the ocean environment and atmosphere. In a sports gaming environment, there may be stands with virtual “audiences” in a tennis game. Players don’t interact with them directly, but they give players a sense that they are in a sports competition and that they have to follow standard rules to win. There may be rains in the background in an archery range. Even though rainy environment is distracting, rain is still not something “extra”. Since this is an archery challenge under different conditions in which rainy environment is involved.
Therefore, it’s hard but important to tell what’s extra and what’s not. When evaluating whether an item is extra or not, we could look at its function in the VR storytelling. As is mentioned in the video “Environmental Storytelling”, “props, items, and their placements tell story visually”. If an item serves storytelling, then perhaps it could be considered as not “extra”. Thus, when designing a VR environment, we pick things that serves our story. And when evaluating and reflecting on an established environment, we can examine how each item serves storytelling.
Week 7
23 Oct, 2022
Choose two artists and explain why their VR work are your favorites above all others. Consider the strategies and ideas they employ to achieve their objective. Post the screenshots, title of the projects and your reflection in your page on Google Site.
Giant by Milica Zec
Though “Giant” is a relatively short film, it’s so impressive. It’s based on a true story of a family struggling to survive in an active war zone. The beginning features two hand shadows of the mother and daughter, and after that, when the main scene is revealed, we know that the parents are trying to tell a story of giant to calm and comfort their daughters under war. There are only two scenes in this film. In the main scene, I can see the flow of emotions effected by the war, as well as different behaviors and thoughts of family members. Milica used simple and clear scenes, along with the touching performances of the actors, to conduct the storytelling. For me, it’s successful.
The Machine To Be Another by BeAnotherLab
The machine, along with the experience that it provides is a creative innovation. It uses VR in a different way from others do. It uses VR to enable one to experience the life of another, thus promoting human connection and mutual understanding. It looks at big issues such as gender, immigration, etc. And in this way, people can see the world from a different perspective and see how other react to this “new body” in turn. It could stimulate empathetic concerns and contribute to a better society.
Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
Is there a city that stood out, or that you found especially memorable? Why? Does any city remind you of a city you have lived in or visited, and if so, in what ways?
For me, the city of Euphemia is especially memorable. When describing the city of Euphemia, the author first mentioned the fact that it’s a place where “the merchants of seven nations gather at every solstice and equinox”(Calvino 36). Then in the end, he elaborated on the description by sharing his personal thoughts that it’s “the city where memory is traded at every solstice and at every equinox”(Calvino 37). From those words, I knew that Euphemia is not only a place for special tradings, but also a secret base where people gather to share stories.
It reminds me of Dubai, which I visited during fall break. The impression that the “souk”s in Dubai gave me most similarizes the author’s description of Euphemia. For example, in the Gold Souk in Dubai, merchants are from different countries and they sell things like gold, species, perfumes, handcrafts. But unlike malls where prices of goods are standardized and salespersons only promote products to you, souk gives both parties more flexibility. In souks in Dubai, you can ask for discounts from merchants and chat with them on topics like countries, species, teas, etc. So to some extent, it resembles Euphemia where “memory is traded”.