Virtual Reality Literature: Examples and Potentials

For the most part, XR projects such as those mentioned above currently exist only in the mainstream margins, with a majority of experiences requiring costly high-end VR rigs and expensive desktop computers that demand audiences experience the works in their optimal state. To counteract this selective catering to the exorbitant end of the XR market, in early 2018 I had the idea to create a VR Experience that would reduce the mandatory use of high-end tech. This project would instead cater directly to a range of audiences by crafting a work that could be experienced across a far larger (and much more accessible) range of lower-end tech. This VR Literature work is called A Place Called Ormalcy.

In the VR version of A Place Called Ormalcy, additional effects mark the dystopic “boiling frog” dilemma that Mr Ormal faces. Each VR tableau subtly increases in size and scale as the Chapters progress, with the audience finding themselves in the climatic Chapter in a looming monochromatic set surrounded by huge windowless block-shaped buildings devoid of detail – except multiple, and menacing, “88” shaped logos (and the awfully transfigured Mr Ormal). In the VR version, the text becomes increasingly difficult to navigate, with the audience having to teleport, twist and turn in the VR Environment to read each annotation, echoing the “fake news” proclamations of our contemporary Western world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to access truth over relentless propaganda.