Narrative virtual reality as a memory machine

Abstract

Since 2014, a new narrative medium has been emerging that is delivered through virtual reality headsets. This paper theorizes narrative virtual reality as a new filmic medium with new and unique affordances that facilitate narrating and sharing memories. In contradistinction to the much-discussed concept of VR as an ‘empathy machine’, we propose to think of VR as a memory machine. This capability of VR is reflected in the proliferation of memory-related content in narrative VR and its early adoption in public history. Narrating and sharing individual and collective traumatic memories have featured prominently in narrative VR. Three unique properties enable a recipient of narrative VR, the immersant, to experience someone else’s memories: embodiment, immersion, and interactivity. First, embodiment allows the immersant to assume the role of the person who remembers or a person that is being remembered. Second, immersion enables the virtual transportation to a past setting that is remembered. Third, since VR always offers at least some form of interactivity, narrative VR permits the immersant to have agency within the remembered narrative. These three aspects combine to provide a qualitatively richer experience of memories in VR than was possible in conventional narrative media. We show how creators have leveraged these specific affordances of VR in support of narrating memories by analyzing two case-studies. First, we look at an example of traumatic collective memory in The Book of Distance (2020), which narrates a family history of forced removal and internment of Japanese immigrants in Canada during World War II from the perspective of the victim’s grandson. Second, we discuss Is Anna Ok? (2018), which lets the immersant experience two sisters' memories of traumatic brain injury, once from the perspective of the injured victim and once from the sister who witnessed the accident.