Scale is a Beautiful Thing in VR
Photo: Michael Murtaugh
Edward Madojemu is a third year Media student at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. He has created a graphic novel using virtual reality tools and processes. His knowledge of virtual spaces and understanding of how we inhabit those spaces, move around in them, enter and exit different scenes is extraordinary. One of his innovations is that there are many different vantage points within the graphic spaces to either view what is happening or in some limited cases to enter the scenes themselves. This tension between viewing and participation leaks into an aesthetic which is designed around the idea of worlds, places to go and experiments with the characters and their actions. He sensitively engages with viewer expectations thereby encouraging a greater degree of participation.
“Virtual images are about ambiguous forms of presence and absence and represent a radical shift in what we mean by proximity. Images in a movie theatre have to be a certain distance away in order for them to be seen with any degree of clarity. Images on television can be watched from just a few feet away, but being too close distorts the viewing process.” (How Images Think) In VR, as Edward commented in an interview, you are teleported into spaces where “out is gone.” This also means that “in” — being a part of the story, making choices about where to move and when, links this project to video game experiences but in an innovative way. VR gives viewers sensations of closeness that are built on imaginary activities which are mental, triggers for the imagination. “Proximity is not just about physical presence, substitution and distance. It is also about a mental state that legitimizes the flow of information and meaning through screen-based environments. It is thus possible to ‘feel’ close to an event although it may be thousands of miles away or be an imaginary place into which you seem to have entered even if there is ‘nothing’ there.” (How Images Think) In Edward’s world, avatars not only put the viewer into the scene, but generate a deeper sense of the closeness that is necessary to fully experience the story he is telling. Damian and Falian is the title of the work.
Madojemu’s simulated world raises all sorts of questions about VR and whether this new medium can be used effectively for storytelling. Most importantly, what perceptual clues are used to indicate presence and narrative? How are physical stimuli used to cue the viewer or participant about the spatial character of the story-space? What happens to time? Ultimately, VR is about tricking the senses, especially the visual cortex, into believing that a window for example is actually a window and not necessarily just a coded space and a portal into the next phase of the simulation. Part of the challenge for participants in VR is the work needed to distinguish between different layers and levels of reality and fantasy.
Madojemu has constructed his world as a series of entryways into different scenes and what is constantly being challenged is our expectation that a ‘table’ or a ‘window’ for example will obey the physics of motion and movement that we experience in real life. Of course, part of the pleasure of VR is that anything can happen and does. Madojemu has created such an intensely immersive experience that the boundaries between physical and mental spaces are continuously challenged by navigation through labyrinths and unexpected twists and turns. This is not only because the graphics are beautiful but also because the narrative invites us to explore its direction and trajectory.
Madojemu says that “discovery is everything to me” thereby allowing participants to both experience and create, to be involved while also retaining some sense of the artifice that has made the story possible. This level of self-consciousness is unusual in VR where so much creative energy is put into creating artificial places that feel real when they can never be anything other than a simulation. Madojemu recognizes this contradiction and plays with all the ambiguities it generates.
Madojemu makes use of multiple storylines and while this approach has been a mainstay of literature for generations, in VR it allows for different characters to pursue different approaches to the challenges they face with the spectator/participant having to reorient themselves constantly to stay connected to the narrative. The language used to describe VR experiences and their design naturalizes the artifice. For example, Madojemu talks about walking up to a character but in general, we don’t walk in VR. Our imaginations are doing the walking as are our eyes. This reveals a tension between simulation and experience. The feelings of being in VR are such, and are often so disorienting, that it becomes difficult to escape the sensation that you are a participant. Inevitably, there is a grid constrained and sustained by the software, so the limitations are pretty severe from within the gut of the algorithms that are used. Madojemu transcends some of these challenges with ease of movement. Because the story is the heart of his approach, he avoids creating unnecessary effects that might overstate the artifice. He avoids explicit forms of mapping to allow participants to fill the experience with their own choices and has created a geography that encourages decision-making, even going so far as to create parallel stories that take participants in different directions.
The feedback loops created by Madojemu’s work don’t lead to major changes in the design of the spaces but do in the experiences of the story. Choice becomes an important arbiter of direction and change. You can enter some environments and get lost in them or return to the main story and participate at another level. You can enter a panel and explore it or return to story without losing the thread. In other words, levels of navigation in Madojemu’s spaces are flexible enough to allow you the feeling that you are creating your own experiences. Madojemu developed a tutorial to further allow participants greater control over their journeys.
In creating Damian and Falian, Madojemu felt that the richness of the experiences would be weakened if participants simply walked around without knowing all the possible choices that they had. This is because VR is so new that without some ‘training’ it would be difficult for participants to engage with the richness of the narrative. Keep in mind, that every new medium has had similar challenges. At the time of its invention, movie-goers had no idea how to watch a film and tended to see a level of continuity between the screen and their perception that seems in retrospect to be naïve (viewers ran from the cinema as a train came barrelling down towards them from the screen). VR as with all new media, needs to be learned. This is the mistake of so much contemporary work in VR which has not understood that the experiential process will only gather steam and credibility as viewers and participants come to recognize the role they play in the creation of their own image-based experiences. Madojemu’s work is a step in that direction because it recognizes that virtual reality is not simply the product of technology but is also, and crucially, a cultural and personal experience.
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