Week 9: VR and Empathy

 As Chris Milk explained in his Ted Talk, Virtual Reality is often considered more than just a gaming system, as it can be used to invoke empathy, causing deeper human connections to form. His VR film Clouds Over Sidra tells the story of a young girl from Siberia living in a refugee camp with her family. It outlines the everyday lives of the refugees, though it is shot with a 360 camera, therefore the viewer can see the entirety of what is going on in each scene. This causes the viewer to become more immersed in the world and story, causing them to feel a sense of empathy towards the refugees. Similarly, in Becoming Homeless, you are able to experience how one might slowly become homeless over time. The use of VR in these cases allows viewers to immerse themselves in the situation, causing them to connect with the material, which invokes a sense of empathy that might not arise from a typical film. 

I looked at Toxi City by Scott Rettburg and Roderick Cover, which is a VR type film about climate change. The film is composed of pictures and videos of rivers, oceans, and marshes as well as plastic, trash, and debris within these bodies of water. Meanwhile, different people share their stories of how climate change has affected their lives. Some are impacted by pollution, others by rising or falling water levels, the list goes on. The purpose of having different individuals share their personal stories adds to the sense of empathy Chris Milk talked about in his Ted Talk. They cause the viewer to become invested and immersed in the story, and in the end they feel more connected to the film because they empathize with those who were highlighted in the process.