Nightmares for Children

“Nightmares for Children” is a found-footage virtual reality installation with a fictional backbone and original soundscape created for Oculus Rift with touch. The viewer/reader will be immersed in 360 video with VR assets and 2D video as overlays and will navigate through a series of dreamy horrors in different emotional registers using the intuitive Oculus touch interface. The piece allows for a very small child’s voice and infant storytelling to sound fully, but at the same time is crafted as a meditation on the imagery in children’s dreams and what it might trigger in the adult imagination - the authors’ hands are apparent in the way the sometimes banal horror of the dreamscapes extends and escalates. “Nightmares for Children” also constitutes an e-lit experiment in the Rift guided by the premise that personal VR headsets enabling immersive electronic literature might constitute ideal dream machines. Tech requirements: we will bring a laptop and Oculus RIFT.

(Source: ELO 2017: Book of Abstracts and Catalogs)