Worlding otherwise: Virtual production as a participatory method for imagining safer digital futures

Abstract

This article demonstrates the capability of Virtual Production (VP) technologies and techniques as new, and potentially very powerful, research tools. We do so through a case study in which a multi-user Virtual Reality (VR) environment was created so that participants could come and explore the troubling topic of online misogyny, sexism and antifeminism in a co-created, playful and embodied way. For this project, the interdisciplinary team developed a multi-stage methodology to deliver a critical, participatory research intervention using VP. Secondary data about participants’ lived experiences of online misogyny, the coping mechanisms they deploy in these situations and the in-built biases and failures of platform regulation that they identify was used to sensitise the case study. Participants’ ideas about familiar and fantastical environments, multiple spaces for creativity and collaboration with variable privacy levels, and customisable avatars for identity expression were used for inspiration by a dramaturg and creative technologist, who worked together to devise a virtual environment and activities for multiple users to explore together in VR. This took place during an all-day in-person workshop with eight participants at a University-based innovation and research driven VP studio. Through facilitated activities and reflective discussions, the participants and research team co-created positive interactions and experiences in the virtual environment based on clear, shared rules, cooperation around tasks, mutual learning and purposeful movement between online and offline contexts. We present this case study to share these findings, and to serve as a template for other researchers who could use VP to prototype provocative scenarios and devise socio-technical alternatives in response to different research questions.