The idea of the forest is to place the participant’s journey at the centre of the experience, avoiding the passive role of a viewer. The participant can move more freely in a landscape that presents the topics and material connected to the subject matter. The landscape needs to motivate the participant to explore, in order to ensure that the participant chooses to process most of the material.

A forest is an intuitive place for exploration, with trees blocking the view and trodden paths that lead to unknown places. It also seems to be a logical metaphor to use to present the topic of Children Born of War (CBOW), which is directly connected to the physical occupation of their birthplace and the child’s rootedness in the local community.

A forest can also be a mysterious place, potentially containing hidden hazards. One inspiring example is the mysterious, mist-filled and dangerous “Lost Woods” in the game “Zelda - Breath of the wild”(2017), where the fog alternately hides and exposes places and draws the player into its midst. 

Similarly, the mysterious mood of “The forest” helps give the participant the sense of being an explorer, and that the goal is to expose what the woods are hiding. Ideally, the sense of exploration also motivates the participant to reflect on the presented material, thinking of that material as pieces in a puzzle that should come together into a logical whole.

The forest is quite dense, with trees hiding what is around the corner. When exploring the landscape, the participant finds several clearings that present various characters belonging to the topic of Children Born of War. These characters include the child, the mother, the father/soldier, the enemy, and the local community. Lastly, one clearing explains the dehumanization and abuse that CBOW experience.

The clearings contain objects that symbolize the different characters, but do not show specific individuals in order to lessen the risk of the participant’s unconscious biases introducing preconceptions that would limit their willingness to listen. Picking up the objects triggers voice-overs and cut scenes. 

The participant’s chosen path determines the order in which the different characters are presented, with the aim being to create the sense that all the different perspectives are valid and should be heard.

A responsive landscape. The forest concept aims to immerse the participant as fully as possible in order to make the experience personal and to create the feeling that their presence has importance. The use of a finger monitor to measure pulse and sweat lets the experience react directly to the participant’s biological signals by changing the mood of the sound design and the animation.

Clouds of dots reminiscent of fog or mist permeate the forest. Different colours are assigned to the different characters. The hue of the colours express emotions and change with the pulse and mood of the participant, inspired by a picture of the Indian Holi festival, during which participants throw coloured pigments up in the air, filling their surroundings and the air itself with colour. It is as if their emotions are being visualized.

The clouds of coloured dots also introduce life and movement to the experience by moving and swirling like swarms of mosquitos.

The colour-clouds are less dense in the clearings, to ensure that the items triggering the presentations of the different characters are clearly visible.

The various characters and clearings have their own unique versions of the experience’s sound design, with the design darkening or lightening in mood depending on the participant's biological signals. The sound design appears to emanate from the clearings and the volume increases as the participant approaches.

The companion. The forest concept introduces a companion to help motivate the participant to explore as much of the material as possible. The companion is a bird, which is both a natural inhabitant of a forest and also a creature that is generally considered to be quick, responsive and relatively non-threatening. The bird will guide the participant through the wood, indicating how to find unexplored areas.

The existence of a companion introduces the element of a responsive relationship into the experience. As the companion serves as a guide that wants to be followed, the character will make the participant reflect whether the bird should be followed or not. Can the companion be trusted? This way of evaluating others is closely related to the idea of the human gaze that permeates this project, and how humans evaluate and objectify others.

Choosing a crow as the companion strengthens this element. While most birds are seen as friendly, in mythology and literature, crows are often depicted as ominous and shifty creatures. The crow-companion would have this duality, potentially both guiding and tricking the participant. The choice of the crow is also inspired by the birds in the sombre, snow-filled Danish VR experience "Nothing Happens"(2017), in which crows are seemingly smart and ‘knowing’, with piercing and questioning eyes. 

As the VR experience does not offer voice or language recognition, the participant cannot talk to the crow. But the companion can actively invite reflection by asking the participant what they think. Questions like ‘why did you react like that?’ could help to motivate even more reflection, while comments like ‘isn't this fun?’ in an inappropriate moment could make the participant question the crow’s motives and trustworthiness.

Shaping the surroundings

The art style of the forest is inspired by the coloured dots from early examples of volumetric capture, but also from the fact that lighting and clouds of coloured dots are relatively easy to create in a game engine. This style is both effective and cost-efficient. It also creates an easy way to change and modulate the representation of the environment by changing the colour or lighting of the clouds of dots.

The forest appears welcoming and trust-inducing, although the topic is serious. The main colour is therefore white, with the ground drawn as blotches of green/brown colour. The trees seem friendly, with high canopies. There is no sky or cloud, just whiteness above the trees. It appears as a metaphorical wood and does not attempt to look natural. 

The colour-clouds can be seen from afar - whirling like dense swarms of mosquitos in various parts of the wood.  When walking on the paths, the colour points move away on approach. They make the forest seem alive and intriguing. If the participant chooses to move outside of the paths, the colour clouds will be denser, making it harder for the participant to orient themselves. However, the participant can move about freely in the landscape. 

The participant has no visible body, but the surrounding colour pixels seem to respect an invisible outline of arms, torso and legs, indicating that the participant is transparent but still present. The participant can use the joysticks to glide forwards or teleport to jump to visible areas, and the path shows corresponding traces of footsteps. Outlines of transparent human hands can be recognized when the controllers are used. The presentation of the participant’s physical presence is as neutral as possible in relation to gender, clothing, race and culture.