Immersive Experiences
CHI/UCD Collaboration Prototype
Prototype of a VR recreation of a children hospital operating room. This early version comes as the result of a collaborative project between the Media Entertainment Psychology Lab (MElab) from UCD and Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) in Crumlin. The objective is to use VR to help children alleviate their pre-intervention anxiety – not by addressing it directly – but by creating an awe-inspiring experience that fosters sense-making, and in turn reduces uncertainty and associated stress. This project was presented at the 2023 PSI Annual conference as part of the Symposium ‘Virtually There with VirtualReality (VR) – Forging New Paths in Paediatric Healthcare’.
La Plume et la Lanterne
‘La Plume et la Lanterne‘ (‘The Quill and the Lantern’) was an asymmetrical experience with an ‘storyteller’ making narrative decisions using an arduino-connected book, and an ‘actor’ playing in VR, whose experience varies on the narrative choices. Carrying a lantern (in reality and in VR to enable high sensory contigency), the ‘actor’ had to solve puzzles to navigate across different fairy tales and find the ‘anomaly’ that has been altering them.
This project won 3 international awards:
a. IVRC, Japan 11/2019: “La Plume et la Lanterne” won
second place at the IVRC exhibition.
b. Nexon Computer Museum, South Korea 10/2019:
“Excellence Award (VR)”
c. Laval Virtual Exhibition, France 03/2019: #Student Award
Assim Kalouaz
PhD Candidate: (Digital) Media Psychology, Experiential Design, Awe