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Watch a recording of this session from the Masterclass Series run by the Centre for Creative Technologies.

Much has been written about the power of virtual reality to put the viewer in someone else’s shoes and increase empathy towards those who experience social marginalization. However the wave of humanitarian VR films that have been produced in recent years has also raised questions about who gets to tell their stories and on whose terms they are invited to speak. Whilst viewers of virtual reality films can find themselves transported to a Syrian refugee camp or a slum in Kenya, critics have argued that such films act less as challenges to inequalities than as a form of misery tourism.

The Immersive Empathy Project is an initiative of researchers within the disciplines of film, drama, psychology, business and digital humanities at the University of Galway that responds to both the potential and the criticisms of immersive reality as a tool for social change. Working with clients of Galway Simon who have experienced homelessness, it situates the principles of co-creation and consent at the heart of its storytelling process. Over the course of several months, it involved a series of workshops that empowered the participants to tell their own stories and to translate those personal narratives into an immersive film, Lost & Found, exploring the experience of homelessness from the perspective of those who have lived it.

This masterclass will introduce participants to the methodologies employed on the Immersive Empathy project along with some of the ethical questions raised by socially engaged research.