“The tunnel” is a VR concept structured as a kind of obstacle course. It presents challenges and motivates a user journey while avoiding the telling of information. The environment is primarily to frame the choices of the participant, and less a place to be explored.

Creating the environment in the shape of a tunnel limits the options for exploration and indicates clearly the direction the participant is intended to move. The shape helps create forward momentum.

Even if the shape of the environment is primarily to inspire movement, it still has a distinct identity as a place. It’s presented as a red tunnel with a warm but also slightly sinister mood. Dark, trunk-like columns block some of the view in front of the participant, and glowing, whitish orbs floating between them with a placement reminding the participant of apples in an orchard.

The tunnel is intended to feel like an intimate place. The blood-red walls are inspired by the inside of a human body, thought of as a kind of velvety aorta. The intent is to represent the place inside our bodies where The Self resides. A sound design with low heartbeats and the impression of something flowing and blowing is to give associations to the sounds we can hear from our own bodies.

The intended effect is a play on the difference between who we feel we are “on the inside” and how we feel about our outer selves and how we are seen by others. I personally think of my inner self as a vulnerable, raw place not protected by skin, while my outer appearance and attitude is a surface I attempt to design and control to protect my Self. I know that my outer appearance and behaviour is judged by others, and I attempt to minimize that which might be criticized to avoid comments or behaviour that can penetrate in to where I’m the most vulnerable.

The glowing orbs floating among the trunk-like columns are the only objects in the space that offer interaction. The participant can grab and thus activate the spheres, which will then engulf the participant and create an egg-like room with white, slightly translucent walls. The red tunnel can be faintly seen through the eggshell-like walls. This engulfing of the participant transports them out of the Self-space and into what represents the outer, objectifying space. The inside of the eggs appears sterile, lab-like, as a place where things are defined and measured. It inspired by the space station in "2001: A Space Odyssey” (1969). The sound design is harsh and inorganic, the lighting very bright.

The egg-like spheres include various challenges, meant to rouse the discomfort of having to objectify oneself and to create awareness of the emotional consequence of objectification. The spheres ask the participants to react to challenging questions for which the acceptable answers are limited and biased, demonstrating the effect of ethical nudging. There is no apparent storyline to the interactions offered in the spheres, but they all deal with topics relevant to the situation of Children Born of War (CBOW) and should be difficult to answer.

The experience ends with an epilogue in which the situation of the CBOW is presented and the relevance of the challenges is explained. The participant is also asked to reflect on how the challenges made them feel, explaining that their own reactions were a core part of the experience.

The companion. The tunnel concept builds on the idea of the companion that was introduced in Concept 2. But whereas the bird companion in “The forest” was intended to motivate and guide, those qualities are not needed in the same way in a tunnel-shaped experience. The role of the companion is instead developed further into a personality that strikes up a relationship with the participant. The companion will prod the participant for reflection by responding to and asking about the participant’s actions, but the companion will also be a character that the participant will need to relate to. Can the companion be trusted? Is it friend or foe?

The companion belongs to The Self space, the space meant to signify the place where we are the most vulnerable. Normally, only the most trusted voices would be allowed to speak directly to us in our Self space.

The companion will thus resemble the concept of having different internal voices trying to influence one’s decision making – the idea of an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. I am exploring this duality. The companion has a a salesman-like personality and voice – light, friendly, flirty and a bit glib – somewhere between creepy and fun. This is intended to motivate reflection on its trustworthines. My inspiration here is the ‘nasty narrator’ in the interactive transmedia production “Net Wars” (2014) who is a kind of Moriarty-like character from BBC’s “Sherlock” series (BBC One, 2015).

Are the companion’s comments funny or mean? Could you be the butt of those kinds of jokes in the future or is it all just friendly gossip? Should you trust the advice of this companion or do the opposite of what it suggests? 

In order to underline the slightly dubious, undefinable character of the companion, it is presented in the shape of a moth. Moths are grey-brown insects that might have associations with bats. They are not really threatening or dangerous, but can be uncomfortably unpredictable in flight.

However, they can also be compared to butterflies and some have beautiful, discreetly patterned wings. Moths are also creatures that can be seen flying among the trees in the evening, and they are insects that one might imagine meeting meeting in a dark, cavernous environment.