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The Future of Storytelling and Education: How Virtual Reality is Changing Narrative Experiences

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VR storytelling

Compared to other storytelling mediums, creating stories in Virtual Reality provides a new toolbox for storytellers and creatives to make and imagine real immersive experiences. Whether the piece is a game or a documentary, Virtual Reality allows for the storyteller to connect with the viewer, in more ways than we previously imagined, through interactivity and realistic immersion. VR is almost as if we are combining the tactical elements of a physical story book or live show/play, with the digital storytelling elements we can use in digital pictures or videos.

Examples of some Immersive VR experiences that tell stories about culture and identity, specifically a narrative about black lives in America, include: Meeting a Monster, I am a man, Traveling while black, and Injustice.

Meeting a Monster is a short 360 film by VR For Good following the organization Life after Hate’s cofounder Angela King’s path into and out of the violent white supremacy movement. It takes the viewer into Angela’s personal moments in home life and in school and how this shapes her into becoming a hateful person. This forces the audience member to essentially walk in Angela’s shoes, understand how this type of hate is taught and how it can be unlearned — when she goes to prison she encounters multiple black women openly having conversations with her, resulting in her unlearning racism. This 360 film successfully immerses the audience into this story that we do not often encounter or dissect: the common process of learning prejudices and behaviors, while then full having potential of letting go of the hate and ignorance and recognizing ones flaws.

I am a man is an interactive documentary experience using historical footage paired with voice over narrations by real Civil Rights participants, about marginalized people fighting for their rights during the Civil Rights Movement. This piece allows the viewer to experience history in an immersive way to better understand personal struggles of oppressed people in America and create awareness of their struggle.

Traveling While Black is a 360 VR story that provides the viewer context for why it was difficult for black people to travel during the Jim Crow era and right before the Montgomery Bus Boycotts and Civil Rights Movement. Through out the film there are multiple people from that time who talk about the struggles and dangers of being black. The green book was a manual for African Americans of places that would accept them during the period of segregation. Later in the film Tamir Rice’s mom speaks of her experience as a mother tragically losing her son to police brutality, as is a common occurrence for black people in America.They talk about how the modern day “green book” is now just in every black person’s mind, as a set of rules or facts to know maneuvering America in a black body. The transition from past to present challenges the way we experience stories from the past how this idea we teach that racism “went away” is false.

The interactive VR experience, Injustice by filmmaker Jaehee Cho, is based on racially motivated police brutality. In Injustice, the viewer witnesses racial discrimination happening in front of them, which forces them to make moral and ethical decisions right then and there. This is another important example of a piece that immerses the onlooker into the these in-just situations that many marginalized people face and fear on the daily because of racial and cultural stereotypes. Now, during a time with great upheaval of the Black Lives Matter movement, this project highlights the importance for non black people to step back, recognize their own privileges, and point out the racially systemic problem in our government law enforcement.

Source: https://arvrjourney.com/the-future-of-storytelling-and-education-how-virtual-reality-is-changing-narrative-experiences-24907fa6ebfa?source=rss—-d01820283d6d—4

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