Virtual Reality Storytelling: The Empathy Medium Needs Empathetic Creators
with Ola Mirzoeva
I’ve always felt that I had no interest in Virtual Reality (VR)/Augmented Reality (AR) technology. Honestly, I barely have an interest in our current film camera technology as my interest have always lay in creating and developing stories. So, when I was assigned to team KARIAKOO from the Transmedia Zone (TMZ) in January, I was slightly worried and knew that figuring out how I could assist the team was going to be a challenge.
VR employs 360 video so that any film experience is immersive for the viewer, giving the feeling that they are within the story. A sales analysis by Pulse on VR (2017) shows that the medium is quickly becoming ‘mainstream’ as various companies such as Sony and HTC are investing in it.
KARIAKOO is a 360 VR film about the Kariakoo market district in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, East Africa. The purpose of the project is to encourage Canadians and global public audiences to examine the informal structures of places like Kariakoo, and question the dominant images of the international aid sector. How then, as VR content (especially those rooted in non-fiction) seemingly gives a more realistic experience than other forms of media, should its producers’ methodologies be affected?
To prepare for filming in May, the team did some testing around Kensington market in Toronto, a sister subject to Kariakoo market. My objectives at the beginning of my working with the team were to write out scripts and plan storyboards for the shoot at Kensington market. This role evolved slightly as the project went on, but it meant I had to undergo some research such as storyboarding and scripting for VR, and even exploring Kensington market in person as up until that point, I had never been. So I learnt a lot over the next 3 months, about the medium, and about Canada.
The team leads on KARIAKOO are two Canadian women who each lived in Tanzania for three years while working in the international development sector, and Global Affairs Canada. For Ola Mirzoeva and Gillian Griffin, life in Kariakoo exposed a big gap between the dynamic urban environment they were immersed in, and the images of safaris, white sandy beaches, conflicted mines and aid-dependent villages that shaped the popular perception of Tanzania.
Compelled to speak back to their community in Canada, as well as international organizations and companies, they decided to build an immersive experience of a day in Kariakoo, the economic and cultural ‘beating heart’ of Dar es Salaam. And what better way to do that than through VR? It actually forces you to walk in someone else’s shoes.
Embarking on this journey however, left them struggling with a question that has also been on my mind this past semester, ‘can I tell this story?’. As a Nigerian living overseas, I found myself wondering if I could tell ‘Nigerian stories’ and if my life experiences were ‘Nigerian enough’ to accurately do that; and I was born and raised there. The two Canadian members of team KARIAKOO wondered, very audibly, if their involvement removed some authenticity from the story they felt needed to be shared.
From my own vantage point as a Lagos native, the Tanzanian involvement in the project (both from local Tanzanians and the diaspora) worked to resolve the ‘license to tell’ issue facing the pair. Ola and Gillian were steeped in research about the area, referring to the doctoral thesis of one of KARIAKOO’s advisors, Benjamin Kirby. They were also collaborating with a research advisor from the Kariakoo neighbourhood through social media, pressure testing ideas, and inviting contributions. The third official team member, AbdulWahid Sykes, is a Canadian-educated Tanzanian, and the grandson of a key figure in the Tanzanian independence movement, which started in Kariakoo. It followed that “co-creation” became a term central to the team’s approach and experimentation. In addition to working with Tanzanians on the project, the team’s placement in the TMZ allowed for collaboration, idea testing as well as Q&As with other teams and mentors in the innovation hub.
Co-creation as I have come to understand it, is people who have different experiences working on one project so that whatever is produced is not just from one perspective but connects with people of various experiences. Working with people from Kariakoo on the project means that they inform how it is represented as it reaches people from the West who are not native to the community. But in order to make sure that the story accurately represents the community, all members of the team need to maintain an atmosphere of understanding and attentiveness to each other.
To put this into practice, the KARIAKOO team participated in the Transmedia Zone and Toronto Public Library’s Storytelling by Design Challenge event where attendees were invited to apply Design Thinking Principles to create stories that represented various communities (such as the LGBTQ+, elderly and rare disease communities, among others) that we were not necessarily a part of. Each group had a mentor from their assigned community that they were to collaborate with as their ideas progressed. This meant being humble enough to acknowledge misconceptions we had about the communities and to ask questions we did not know the answers to. This way, we were able to put ourselves in the shoes of those we were trying to represent.
VR is interesting because it is essentially does for the user what co-creation does for the producer; it creates a situation that allows for a person to experience a place, culture or story they may not necessarily have before, or more in depth than they had before. Schools are already using VR to ‘take’ students on field trips, and 360 videos like our sample piece on Kensington market and the upcoming KARIAKOO experience will allow people who have never been to those places to experience what they are like. Co-creating with subjects and experts builds experiences guided by people on either side of a cultural bridge.
I am of the opinion that through this, as with co-creation, understanding and unity are fostered so that despite our differences, we are able to better understand how best to co-exist and inspire each other. Coming to this realisation has turned my initial disinterest for VR into respect, not only because of what it fosters, but because it gives me the opportunity to put this realisation into practice. I can learn from people in this field and decide how I can build them up with my own interests.
