坠落的自白 [VR DEMO] Original

A DESCENSIVE CONFESSION

Interactive & Immersive Virtual Reality Digital Storytelling

A DESCENSIVE CONFESSION explores the inner emotions of groundlessness and nothingness in anorexia through digital storytelling method. It is a virtual reality immersive experience depicting the landscape constructed through the action of self-hugging associated with anorexia, along with the subsequent feelings of groundlessness, nothingness, and insecurities. Our existence is validated when we establish contact with the world through the agency of our bodies, and the coexistence of being and nothingness describes our lives. Within this inescapable sense of hopelessness and absurdity, we compromise and struggle to maintain our existence.

This virtual reality experience portrays the inner landscape constructed through self-hugging in anorexia, accompanied by feelings of groundlessness, nothingness, detachment and insecurities. Through experiments and body performances, it aims to transfer and communicate the inner experiences to the digital realm, exploring sensory perception and the embodiment of the existential self.

Sensationism and Existentialism

The main academic context of this project lies within sensationism (Le Breton) and existentialism (Heidegger). It seeks to explore how we perceive our existence and grapple with feelings of groundlessness, insecurity, and angst within a complex world.

How to describe the feeling of groundlessness/nothingness with the digital storytelling method?
How to convey the feeling of groundlessness to the audience through a virtual reality experience?

Centered around the research questions, this project delves into my personal experience with anorexia, exploring the accompanying sensations of groundlessness, nothingness, and insecurities linked to the act of self-hugging. Its primary objective is to investigate the psychological landscape of groundlessness, anxiety, apprehension, insecurity, uneasiness, and malaise.

By utilizing sensory perceptions and bridging the physical experience with the digital medium, the project aims to convey these inner emotions to the audience. Through research and the developmental process of experiments and bodily performances, an immersive experience will be created to foster awareness and understanding of the situation.

Bodystorming and Performance

Starting with the exploration of sensory perception and the embodiment of the existential self within the physical world, this research journey delves into a series of experiments and body performances aimed at transferring and communicating inner experiences to the digital realm.

With the performative experiments of body storming which reimagined the experience of self-hugging in situations of groundlessness, insecurity, and detachment. Through observation and documentation of clay and balloon deformations, as well as traces of bodily movement, a distinct “cocoon-ish shape” emerged which inspired the formation of the "landscape" and the mechanism of hand-tracking features throughout the experience.

Recreating inner feelings in digital realm

By utilizing physical and bodily experiences as a portal, this project aims to establish connections and relationships between physical and digital storytelling methods. Through this integration, the project seeks to communicate the inner experiences to the audience while enhancing the user experience and accessibility.

The choice of virtual reality as the medium is rooted in its intrinsic characteristics and echoes the research on the relationship between bodily sensory perception and how we recognize our existence in this world. It creates a separate realm from the physical world while also generating misalignment of various senses, echoing the feeling of groundlessness, floating, insecurity, and nothingness.