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How can we as artists use and question Virtual Reality to improve society's misguided hatred for street pigeons, utilise it as a tool of inciting empathy and make people aware of urban anthropocentrism?
The busy cities we live in are central arenas of bustling life, emerging from fabrications of human and non-human forces. Our urban landscape consists of many forms of life - humans, plants and animals - adapting to the shared space. But despite it being so diverse, we, humans, as urban practitioners, architects and designers, often fail to facilitate other non-human species and tend to exclude animals from urban planning.
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For this project I have decided to aim to create an immersive Virtual Reality experience where the spectator is able to step into the shoes of another entity - an urban pigeon. The project's objective is to trigger an empathy response and, through immersive visuals, realistic sounds and interactive elements, facilitate the viewer with an experience of navigating through the world with a different perspective, circumstance and challenge.
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For the VR game I have decided to create an environment based on and resembling a street in Rotterdam - the bustling with life Oude Binneweg.
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I chose this street since it is always busy with people, birds and rodents. It is a place where so many urban dwellers meet, intermingle and their interactions unfold in various manners. From restaurant workers shooing away the bold pigeons from their door to someone running away from a rapidly scurrying rat, these dynamics are present on the streets of Rotterdam every single day. And although these interactions are fast out of the mind of the human, smaller urban beings might be more affected by them.
This project not only gave me more insight into the nuances of developing a Virtual Reality game but also has been a great learning process about triggering emotion and empathy through various visual strategies in film, animation
and VR.
Playthrough - Overview of the Environment
Early character design sketches
