Nonprofit Commons — VR for Good
NPC original event hosted by Joyce Bettencourt, community manager of the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life community within the virtual world of Second Life— 09/18/2015 — #VRgood
“Rhiannon Chatnoir: Lets move on to our featured presentation on using Virtual Reality for Good.”
I put together a Pinterest board too of a good amount of the various links / videos I mention at https://www.pinterest.com/avatarjoy/vr-good/ so afterwards you can dive in deeper to those resources — lots of interesting reading/watching on the topic of #VRgood.
We have had some discussions on Virtual Reality here at Nonprofit Commons in the past.
Virtual Reality or VR usually refers to using a Computer generated world or 360 video that creates an immersive world you can experience through things like heads up display.
Head mounted display — allows you to either plug into your computer and play games, wander virtual spaces, or, for some devices you can pop your mobile phone pops into them and use.
So think of Heads up Displays as another form of a monitor, or viewing tool. You can also use tools like Oculus, etc, here in Second Life or OpenSimulator by using a viewer that can render it correctly for you. Check out the http://ctrlaltstudio.com/ viewer for more on that.
and will chat more on that near the end
and though we can use a virtual worlds like Second Life to experience more immersive virtual reality through a headset, is is good to note that most are developing virtual reality experiences in game creation software like Unity, or using special camera setups and shooting 360 degree video.
BUT — A lot of the lessons we know from working within virtual worlds, also translate to using virtual reality through heads up devices like Oculus or Google Cardboard.
Virtual reality can take people to places and scenes that will increase their empathy to charitable causes, but the concept of charitable causes being able to extend their reach via Virtual Worlds has long been a practice in Second Life and other similar virtual worlds.
Sometimes, all it takes to foster awareness for a cause, or inspire more charitable giving is a visit to a place or person in need., but not every situation or location is accessible to the average nonprofit volunteer or donor, but virtual reality experiences designed to increase empathy and charitable giving.
That power to immerse people deeply into a virtual experience can create empathy towards an event or cause.
There is a A wonderful TED talk by Chris Milk on how virtual reality can create the ultimate empathy machine. Chris talks on how traditional film is a series of rectangles telling stories but tools like virtual worlds and VR can put the viewer inside the frame, to the point they aren’t just viewers, but experiencing it all around them.
There have been many virtual reality studies on this, and one such was a VR experience where someone would put on a VR headset and experience looking around the room and down at their own self, but what they saw was a different body.
It was called The Machine to Be Another and really was an investigation on the relation of Identity and Empathy. Designed as an interactive performance installation, the ‘Machine’ offers users the possibility of interacting with a piece of another person’s life story by seeing themselves in the body of this person and listening to his/her thoughts inside their mind. The experience approaches empathy through an art like exhibition, that was very effective. http://www.themachinetobeanother.org/?page_id=764
everart Okelli: Henry is an animated VR movie for Oculus Rift that is designed to evoke empathy in virtual reality.
Another example of using a VR experience to create empathy and let you experience a social situation is masters project from Lucy Bonner who used VR to talk on the gender harassment women frequently suffer.
The experience talks on the stress of cat calls, and gender harassment, and how creating a VR environment, in this case in Unity, really made others feel what that is like. It is one way to use a virtual reality experience as an approach to sensitivity and awareness. A warning when you watch the video of this project, that the language is a bit unsafe for work, and could be a trigger for those who might have experienced violence.
A Spotlight on Nonny de le Pena’s Work Using VR for Good
Another person who has done a lot of work creating often charged emotional virtual experiences is the journalist and activist Nonny de la Pena http://www.immersivejournalism.com/.
Some of you may know her from her work here in Second Life, she did the Gone Gitmo virtual project here that set up a detention camp avatars could walk through and be part of.
Nonny was originally a print journalist, and then documentary film maker, who took traditional journalism and combined it with virtual world and VR technologies to create immersive journalism. She started working using VR headsets to create other immersive experiences. She then does a recreation of actual events, allowing participants to not only hear, and see, but feel the experience of what it is like in the situation
She starts with real audio recordings from often intense news events, say bombings, or police brutality incidents, etc. Having participants wear VR goggles, that track where you look and how you move., and that increases sense of presence, where you are experiencing through your body an event.
A few she has worked on are, a VR recreation of poor waiting in a food line in LA, and a medical emergency that breaks out during of someone going into diabetic shock over not having eaten — Hunger in Los Angeles.
Project Syria, an immersive journalism experience during a Syrian bombing
this one I would actually like you to watch now.. it gives you a good overview of her process, work and the power of using VR you will also see some of the work from Gone Gitmo in it, and shots of that Hunger in LA.
Lissena: “This sounds like an even more intense version of Ran Hinrich’s vets PTSD experience sims here in Second Life? How is the increase in empathy measured?”
Rhiannon Chatnoir: nod Lissena, good parallel, yes VR headsets have also been used in similar ways
Zinnia Zauber: The PTSD experience was eye opening. Scary issues at the mall.
Rhiannon Chatnoir: Do you have a link to those?
Zinnia Zauber: T2 PTSD Education (130,192,29) I am not sure if it is totally open to the public. We did beta testing with Ran.
Rhiannon Chatnoir: thanks Zinnia
Lissena: I believe only a few parts are not open and open to the public. meditation areas.
Rhiannon Chatnoir: there was an amazing one in SL that was on Schizophrenia.
Gentle Heron: That one is still here Rhiannon
Rhiannon Chatnoir: oh good to know Gentle
a blurb on Nonny’s Project Syria experience:
Originally commissioned by the World Economic Forum and created at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, this immersive journalism piece focuses on the plight of these children. Using elements are drawn from actual audio, video and photographs taken on scene, Project Syria employs new virtual reality technologies to put the audience “on scene” and evoke the feeling of “being there.” Through real time graphics from the Unity game engine and the sense of presence evoked through high-resolution virtual reality goggles and compelling audio, Project Syria takes the audience to the real events as they transpire.
In Nonny’s case she is approaching it as a journalist, so not sure she is doing any measuring and yes, there have been some amazing enter the person/avatar and experience something intensely. Her work is using VR as a medium for storytelling for good. A lot of the questions about the importance of VR for journalism go back to empathy. The VR experience making you empathetic to a protagonist via virtually living in their world. So when that protagonist is actually a resident of a war-torn country, say, or protester in the streets, that potential for empathy is quite sizable.
Sheila Yoshikawa: Nonny’s work sounds fascinating. I have a friend from Syria, who has been a refugee in the UK for some time, she has felt that people did not seem to want to understand the enormity of the destruction that was happening, they did not engage.
Gentle Heron: “Is this because they believe immersion at that level is necessary to establish empathy?”
Rhiannon Chatnoir: yes, and it is hard to put people who may have no context to draw from of something like that, into a place of fully understanding. But, you can more so via virtual experiences here, and those using VR headsets
Tredi Felisimo: Gentle, the brain seems to think the experience is real when the vision is restricted to the images, and your gaze follows the environment in 3D
everart Okelli: Yes, the VR experience changes the concept of identity somewhat. Instead of projecting onto an avatar, well designed experiences can be internalized into the physical body.
Rhiannon Chatnoir: nod, of course, with VR headsets there still are the problems of those with low/no vision, or no stereo vision, and some experience motion sickness after too long
Tredi Felisimo: but, they’re getting better! Total visual immersion, especially with stereoscopic sound in noise canceling headphones takes you completely there.
Rhiannon Chatnoir: yes, it is more embodied if you are using a traditional monitor to experience a virtual world, game space, you do come to identify with your avatar, but you are still getting a more distant view than if you were looking out of the eyes of your avatar or point of view using say an Oculus Rift
Another example, though more straight forward, of using VR to tell a news story
The Des Moines Register and Gannett Digital have partnered to tell the story “Harvest of Change” of an Iowa farm family using emerging virtual reality technology and 360-degree video. that they created by making in Unity a recreation of an Iowa farm and make a VR experience on the plight of farming, and sustainability.
This one is interesting for many reasons. There has been a push of using video as a immersive medium in VR, and 360 degree video filmmaking to tell VR stories
Nice examples of using 360 video for impact / good is Honor Everywhere — a virtual reality veterans experience. Honor Everywhere 360 allows Veterans who aren’t able to physically travel the opportunity to see their memorials.
“Honor Everywhere 360 is a Virtual Reality tour of the Memorials in Washington, DC. The Virtual Reality (VR) experience is viewed with special “goggles” which are brought to a Veteran’s bedside, wheelchair or assisted living center. These short films create immersive experiences for terminally ill and aging Veterans using Stereoscopic 360, 3D video. Regardless of their physical location, Veterans are able to experience the World War II Memorial, the Iwo Jima Memorial and Arlington National Cemetary”
This seems like such a simple concept, but powerful for those who can’t experience it via any other way.
Make sure to explore that video, lots of great snippets of elderly veterans really being impacted by putting on a VR headset and being able to look around and at the memorials.
[09:56] Gentle Heron: That sounds like a great use. good targeting of audience and their needs
[09:57] Rhiannon Chatnoir: yes Gentle, you can bring the experience to them, wherever they may be. Also.. Clouds of Sidra http://vrse.works/clouds-over-sidra/, a virtual reality film for the United Nations in partnership with Samsung. The film was commissioned as part of the UN’s advocacy at the World Economic Forum in Davos to state and business leaders and offers a unique perspective into the lives of the world’s most vulnerable people. It follows the story of a 12 year old girl in a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan.
Why the UN decided to use VR as a storytelling medium:
“Getting a sense of ‘presence’ from Virtual Reality is an incredibly powerful experience. Doing so in such a heartbreaking place will, we hope, have a profound impact on the viewer that traditional newsreels and film making has so far failed to convey. There is an urgency and visceral immersion to the film”
[09:57] Gentle Heron: the whole point of extending the physical world into the virtual
[09:57] Lissena: I like that phrase — bring the experience TO them
[09:57] Rhiannon Chatnoir: Even ABC has begun doing news coverage on Syria in VR
What if you are thinking of how to use Virtual Reality for good
Well you don’t have to rush out to buy an Oculus, there are simpler ways to experience VR.
Google Cardboard offers a low-cost introduction to immersive virtual reality to anyone with a smart phone. For as little as $10 USD you can purchase a headset and experience a wealth of 3d applications.
What’s the user experience on it? You might think “I can’t imagine it would be good if it’s made of cardboard.” But it isn’t bad at all, not as fast or high resolution as say the Oculus, but things are still in early days for those sort of devices
Google has an app you can learn best practices for designing VR experiences on Google Cardboard https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.vr.cardboard.apps.designlab
Zinnia Zauber: Have you seen the old school ViewMaster is going VR? I have it on my Xmas list! I am so excited!
Gentle Heron: oh how cool! I remember ViewMaster
[10:01] Rhiannon Chatnoir: yes! I saw that ViewMaster is releasing a VR viewer.. that is just brilliant. If you think on it, that really is probably most of our first experiences with a virtual reality. :)
[10:01] Zinnia Zauber: And, a great way to explain what VR is. People remember that, and I still have mine. :)
[10:01] Sheila Yoshikawa: ow wow @Zinnia, I had a ViewMaster! I loved it
[10:01] Rhiannon Chatnoir: yes totally Zinnia
But, if you want to experience immersive VR here in SL or OpenSimulator, you will need something like an Oculus Rift
Another way to create or experience immersive virtual reality is right here through Second Life. Second Life has a beta test viewer that is designed for use with the Oculus Rift: https://community.secondlife.com/t5/Featured-News/Using-the-Oculus-Rift-with-Second-Life/ba-p/2728824
If you have the Oculus Rift development hardware you need to email to sl_oculus_beta@lindenlab.com to apply for the limited beta. Linden Lab have even set up a category in the destination guide of places to best experience using a virtual reality headset: http://secondlife.com/destinations/Oculus
There is also the third party viewer CtrlAltStudio that you can use both with Second Life and OpenSimulator with Oculus Rift and other VR devices http://ctrlaltstudio.com/ that is open for anyone to use, and is a variant of the Firestorm Second Life viewer.
I am going to end our discussion here. There really is so much more to chat on, but we had talked on giving an intro to this sort of VR stuff.
Again, for the Pinterest board with all of these resources and more, go to: https://www.pinterest.com/avatarjoy/vr-good/. And, if you want to help pin any VR for Good project you come across to this #VRgood board, I am happy to add others as collaborators.
[10:04] Zinnia Zauber: Way to use Pinterest, Rhi! Yay!
[10:04] Rhiannon Chatnoir: thanks, yeah it also helped me bookmark things for this presentation
[10:04] Buffy Beale: lots of great info!
[10:04] Lissena: a great introduction!
[10:04] Sheila Yoshikawa: great serendipity, used an Oculus today for the first time at a technology enhanced learning fest at my uni this afternoon! thanks very much, food for thought
[10:05] DFox Spitteler: Many thanks Rhiannon
[10:05] Zinnia Zauber: Wonderful, Sheila! Great job Rhi! I think everyone is stoked on this VR Intro and wants more!
[10:05] Dancers Yao: thanks Rhi…excellent presentation
Rhiannon Chatnoir: also, next week in Los Angeles is the Oculus Developer conference. I was able to get a free ticket to go.. so thought this would be a good resource for that too. so will probably add to it while there, and there will be folks like Nonny there so maybe more to come on that
Zinnia Zauber: Then we look forward to your report!
Gentle Heron: So much to learn, so little time.
everart Okelli: Excellent job! I envy you attending the Oculus conference, have a great time!
a full transcript was originally published at docs.google.com.
