A VR experience C by MHD Fares Qadri

In 1942, Albert Einstein was teaching at Oxford University, and one day, he just gave an exam of physics to his senior class. And he was walking on the campus with his assistant when all of the sudden, the assistant looked at him and said "Dr. Einstein, this exam which you just gave, isn't that exactly the same exam you gave to the same class one year ago?","Yeah, yeah" said Einstein "it's exactly the same"."But Dr. Einstein, how could you possibly do that?", the assistant said. "Well," said Einstein, "the answers have changed." In other words, The question remains the same about struggling for human equality and human rights breaking stereotypes, but the time changes. If we still are giving the same solutions then we are not creative enough to bring new contexts and boundaries for society to develop... same answers will not bring us even to the same place it was leading us before. We live our today inside a media and socio-economical bubble that is determining how "normal" people should act, and what stereotypes they should follow, To form the "inside the box" thinking where we agree with everyone around to save reputation, avoid embarrassment, and feel secure staying in the same social context we are today. but the problem is that (with time) these norms will not even result in the same socio-conditions we have now, things will get more deconstructed that's why the change should not be only revolutionary but should also be treated as a permanent necessity. That's why society should always work on making inclusive projects, to avoid risks of eliminating different people, minorities, and ones who don't have enough power to stand for themselves. When speaking about challenging the norms we need to define the problem (not only fixing the results) and think about how can we change the way people systematically acts towards the issue. Ex.solving climate change, we should care about sustainability, which only changes systematically by rethinking our norms of living. Why doing a film? -Encouragement for creative thinking, initiating moods for the more integrated environment, and looking upon things from a different perspective needs to be a powerful act of film and art. -People usually tend to stick to what they know and the brain usually tends to name things to understand and set boundaries for perception, and through the film, I want to challenge for new perspectives of thinking.

New World:

- I step into a room, a room without a border, a room like an open sky.
I feel exposed, but now I feel clear and bold, no I think I see my self as I am, I accept my self.
- Wait a minute, but I can see you now in the room, so clear and bold, in the infinity you become my anchor of direction.
I can see we are different, I don’t affect the space the way you do. Should your way be better or mine?
I want to orientate, that’s why I will call what I see. You will be yellow, and I will be blue.
- Oh, no wait, wait... you are disappearing agoin.
I will stair at you so I dont forget how you look like, bold and yellow, bold and yellow, yellow...
Your light is totally off, I can see you in my mind

blue!

You dont have to be bluish I accept you for who you are.

In this project, I look into filmmaking not as a tool for analyzing reality, but for more of proposing borders for new desirable one.

How we see our selves as individuals, explore life in action, and how we look into each other and with that discovering life in curiosity and love.

In this text and material, the aim was to try with minimal tools to propose some ways of integration and mutual understanding. and by minimal tools I mean minimalisticly built environment, light in different times of day, water in different states like fog, clouds, sea..., only two characters in every scene, and very simplified ways of speech, as if one was born into a new dimension, and imagining what kind borders they would like to give it.

I started to make some research about light and space, one of the light designers who inspired me was James Turrell his work was so fascinating, he was working with light, color, space and how it affects the perception and spatial contemplation, to me the indulging and wonder in the world and relations are very close to the experiences he creates visually.

to me, he is about contemplative ambiances of light, where you could enhance the sensation of dimensions through focal glowing of almost air particles, and where all other materials are more of surfaces that contain the primary and secondary light bounces, we could see that in “Ganzfield” series2,3 where he worked with the phenomenon of the total loss of depth perception as in the experience of a white-out, then all the sensations are heightened to the point where as an audience you could start your own imagination journey.

It is also very inspirational the way he plays with geometries against the sun, and how our perception to light and color differs according to the contrast nuances, in away pushing us to edge of visual comprehension, where we start to question our visual perception in between what we see and what we think. Crater Spaces4 is an example of this approach was when he set in a stage of geologic time, at the Roden Crater’s chambers and tunnels, where he emphasizes the sense of existence towards the paths and spheres of planets, sun, moon, and stars, bringing in the conscious of existence into the here and now. in a way I believe that the light is one of the powerful tools and information container to reveal time, and space intended since we perceive it not only visually by also biologically, predicting the weather for example and the states of the situation around us.

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