Rachael Newport
VisitoRs
VisitoRs.studio was a 2016 Berlin-based collaboration project created by Rachael Newport bringing together artists, scientists, developers, designers and thinkers to use virtual reality to create a new space for experimentation.
VR compels people to act through experiences.
Its capacity for immersive storytelling is unlike any other medium. Through VR we can see the world through somebody else’s eyes, tell the stories of unheard voices, and create a space of unity for everybody.
At a time when humanity faces a global state of flux, virtual reality is a chance not only to experience new worlds but to enrich and inform the world we live in.
Equality
dissolve imaged barriers, diversify voices
Transparency
As standard practice
Discovery
Play, Participation, Experimentation
VisitoRs.studio
Experiment 1/3
VR BRAINJAM
A co-creation lab bringing together neuroscientists, artists, filmmakers, technologists, business leaders and designers and to explore multiple perspectives when creating VR together. After a presentation, they are moderated through a design process to create a VR immersive experience together.
Creator/Moderator, Rachael Newport
Co-host, Klaus Kammermeier
THE RESULT: a collaborative VR experience that explores how different parts of the brain become active from different stimuli. The player is placed in a hemispherical room with two pillars placed on their left and right side. The player finds plastic 3D puzzle pieces they can lift and place on a skeletal tree. These are puzzle pieces for constructing a 3D model of the brain. On the pillar on the left, there is a large piece of modeling clay attached to a stand. The player can put pressure on the modeling clay and deform it, making it possible to build a sculpture.
If the player chooses to interact with the brain puzzle the wall/ceiling on the left side of the room starts to go from black and white to colored. The longer the player does this the more saturated the color. The music in the room begins to play a structured scale, (for example the chromatic scale). If the player chooses to interact with the clay and build sculptures, the right side of the room begins to become colored. The music becomes more irregular and different sounds textures are introduced. The player may also choose to split their time between both interactions and will see the whole room become colored, though less saturated than it would be had they spent their time only at one exhibit.
BrainJam participants*
"From a neuroscience perceptive, its important to remember that not surprisingly things are more complicated than left and right brain. We think in more overall patterns that are constantly being modulated in our brain. However, this experience reminds us how we each have natural pattern tendencies that we use more often, and by habitually reusing the same areas of the brain we activate those neurons. Activating those neurons allows the neurons to send signals into their environment that results in the insulation of those neurons being increased. This is done by another type of call called the glee cell. The increased insulation that the glee cell causes results in the neuron becoming even more efficient than before which can then help that was of thinking become more habitual. So it is possible to find new ways of thinking but it might be uncomfortable in the beginning."
Lindsay Petley Regen, Neuroscientist, Cell Biologist
"From a business innovation perspective, it's really important to look at both sides of your brain. I see a lot of people and a lot of companies overemphasizing one part, either the creativity part where they create lots and lots and lots of ideas and never do anything with them or they emphasize on the structural part with their innovation processes where in fact they create so many processed that they kill most of their interesting ideas. From a business innovation perspective, it's really important that you go back and forth between the creative part and the structural part and create something really meaningful out of your idea and turn your idea into reality."
Klaus Kammermeier, Business Innovation Expert
"I would say the main challenge of this experience was giving the player a platform to stimulate all parts of their brain and what I mean by that is letting them be creative or test their logical thinking. This is obviously the whole point of the exercise to analyze how the player thinks. Drawing that out in a game-like environment can be quite challenging so the crucial thing with this project is that it’s a virtual reality experience and because of that its far more capable of simulating what the player can do in real life and I honestly don’t think it could’ve beens done in any other way."
Catherine, Unity Developer
VisitoRs.studio
Experiment 2/3
ART
Exploring Virtual Reality as an artistic tool by pairing visual art with music to translate the energy of art into a visceral space
Producer, Co-Director Rachael Newport
Visual Artist, Co-Director Claudia Maharaj
Musician, Aisha Bison Rouge
Disappearing Act, Claudia Maneka Maharaj
"Black negative spaces and a minimal environment to match the minimal aesthetic of the painting. Basic build idea: black room, simple textured walls, painting on one side spotlit, musician on the other side also spotlit.
A long passageway with the painting at one end and the musician at the other. The visitor starts in the middle with both ends seeming far away The music echoes in the space unless the visitor moves close to it. The painting and the musician are spotlighted the only solid objects emerging clearly from this dark space The walls are vaguely apparent which gives the visitor the feeling of being closed in Light or particles moving behind the musician to make the 2D video of their performance seem more 3D. Light pulsing softly around in the space in time with the music.
Up & Down = play with light moving up and down over the walls… like light coming through blinds from outside. Correlates with depression; the change of POV from looking/moving up to looking/moving down; the motion of the brush that created the essence of the painting." - Claudia Maneka Maharaj
Night, Claudia Maneka Maharaj
"This painting explores Ideas of the existential and transcending, bodies in motion and hanging in time and space.
As inspiration for the VR piece
Particle dust/sprinkle effect wherever the visitor looks a sprinkling of “matter” appears - small specks of colour perhaps mirroring in that of the colours in the painting. If the visitor’s head stays still the specks will fade/fall away but if they move their head the specks will appear again. *Hanging : could the audience walk around this piece perhaps? Literally, the work is hanging on strings, visitor can move around, in front and behind it. (Perhaps there can be some motion / movement of the painting when people go near. Interactivity of : VR; visitor and the art; physical and virtual; time and space)." - Claudia Maneka Maharaj
Musician Aisha Bison Rouge transformed the visual feeling of the paintings into evocative music. She composed and performed a piece inspired by the paintings which was captured in 360 and added to the VR world.
After recording Ashia’s performance, sound designer Lukas Panayi mixed the sound according to the texture and spatial dynamics of the environment Maneka had built and set it up for 360˚ playback within the experience.
Final POC
Aisha on set
VisitoRs.studio
Experiment 3/3
Discovery.XR
We are exploring the potential of extended realities to elevate the innovators of tomorrow through immersive, embodied experiences.
Our approach
Humanize
Come together and take time to relate to the other people in the room. Arrive in our bodies and open our hearts and minds to embrace the collective experience we´re about to have.
Define
Clarify the problem we are trying to solve and ensure we have measurable outcomes, our definition of done and are in agreement how we are measuring success.
Understand
Fall in love with the problem by creating Empathy maps with demographic and psychographic profiles of our humans with a problem to solve and jobs to be done.
Empathize
Step inside VR and inside another´s virtual shoes to literally walk through the problem and feel its nuance and its power. See the world from another point of view to deepen understanding.
Discovery Workshop participant feedback*
"Wonderful event. Not like anything I've experienced before. I found myself engaged in crutial themes and topics that I never usually have time for. Incredibly valuable - thank you!"
Joseph
"I felt like it was a group of bright, passionate people firing thunderbolts of ideas at each other and distilling that into pure idea juice. It was fabulous, and I want to do it again as soon as possible."
Malachi
"I really enjoyed the VR aspect of the workshop as it allowed the group to come together and think about our objective from another point of view."
Shaun
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