Immersive Sandbox Reflection:
For this reflection, I have chosen the following two films:
- Peter Nottsworth (How I Learnt to Live with Myself) (2023) by Ryan James Bandong, Angus Kilgour, Jennifer Lee, and Jack Purnell, and
- Dreamscape (2023) by Jeremy Sta Ana, Alicia Herrera, Alissandra Mariano, and Jennifer Tang.
Peter Nottsworth (How I Learnt to Live with Myself)
Petter Nottsworth was an interesting exploration of identity, especially when applied to the questions of how XR could change the way we live and improve quality of life. With many companies working on digital doubles, through Peter Nottsworth, I could imagine how by creating a “clone” of ourselves that would effectively be a virtual assistant, equiped with the traits and areas that we wished to improve upon our lives, such a clone could be beneficial, just as Peter’s clone was in the film. While the portrayal in the film was positive and comedic, I feel it would have been good to see a counterpoint to that, especially given how Peter was taking the pills by the handful by the end, before he ran out, perhaps through some sort of impact of the loss of the clone on a personal level. As it was, Peter reaped the long term positives that I feel such an assistant could provide, those being positive reinforcement of behaviours one might wish to change within themselves.
Dreamscape
Dreamscape is an interesting counterpoint to Peter Nottsworth, though I did not set out to pick the film on that premise. The film was really well made, with framing and colours used to great effect to tell the story and convey the themes of the potential negatives of XR, such as overuse and reliance for escapism, and potential addiction. There’s a brief moment where the protagonist, Maya, opens the box with the titular Dreamscape headset and is confronted with a warning declaration that she quickly discards. I could only read the warning of overuse causing addiction when I paused it, though one could guess it was there — it would have been nice to see that clearly, if even briefly, on screen. The real world is portrayed in black and white, in a square frame; the Dreamscape world, in stark contrast, in wide screen and bright colours with a soft glow. The framing and saturation of each clearly represents boredom and monotony, excitement and beauty respectively, and do so really well. There was only one moment when the immersion of the Dreamscape world was broken, where in the background we can see some people with a baby stroller walking. There was only one other moment where immersion broke, which was upon Maya’s return to the real world, her phone screen has a clear overlay tracking shot as it doesn’t conform to the phone screen and the handheld footage. While perhaps nit-picking, it would have been nice if both those elements weren’t there, but I digress, as the effect when Maya is in her subconscious and meets a mirror version of herself, who it would appear represents her addicted self, was really well done. Overall, a great representation of the potential dangers of XR addiction and a nice little story.
Other Studio Reflection:
For the reflection on another studio, I chose Entangling Media. The premise of the studio seemed to be that of telling non-fiction human stories through different aspects of media, linked by a thematic element and presented on a website. The sense I got from reading the studio description was that the works within would be experimental and artistic in nature.
Given the two works I looked at, I would have to say it was mostly successful. Those two works I randomly selected from the studios page, and were UN-GLITCH, which said it explores peoples’ understanding of AI, and Spook or Spoof…?, which explores stories of the unexplained.
UN-GLITCH was presented in an interesting way, a website with glitched out elements that each are a link to interviews that are presented as SMS bubbles, and media elements, such as an experimental video that was on the studio page but I couldn’t find on the UN-GLITCH website, and audio interviews. While the presentation seemed unique and well put together from a technical perspective, I also found it rather annoying, especially the manner in which the text interview portions were broken up into tiny SMS bubbles, having to scroll the page for whet seemed like an endless amount, my eye having to work too hard. It was certainly the more bold and experimental of the two works.
Spook or Spoof…? was a more straightforward experience, with four images on its website that are links to videos and an audio interview dealing with peoples’ paranormal experiences. From a technical perspective they were somewhat underwhelming, especially after the polish of UN-GLITCH, and they didn’t take any chances, which seemed to me to be antithetical to the studio’s premise. I also found the content itself rather lacklustre, but that could be of my own biases, due to the fact that I am an atheistic skeptic, and the majority of the stories seemed to hold a religious element.