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.

Since the story was about an alien strange reality it was decided to have an object that would give some identity to these spaces or personalities, so for the first and last scenes i designed an object that looks like an iris inspired by the name of the film C “to see” where a person observe him/her self according to others and reality around. In the first this iris is personal to every spot deep and hollow reflecting the reality colors of the stone beneath, in the last scene this iris is the light of the scene that puts its imprint by light and shadow on everything visual, and when the viewer makes the effort to move around in the water that fills the horizon, he/she starts to see other details of the space that this light not only reveals but also apparently hide in other directions.

In this VR experience I started to think of how we as humans deriving meaning out of stories, and how to empower audience and invite for interaction with the work. This project was an open-world poetic experience with a kind of "Ganzfield" experience where an audience could fillup with their own interpretation, connect to the story, or interact with character... This project was a trial in the relation of interdependency and sharing power relations in between the camera as a directional object, the improvisation of the character (dancer), a proposed story, and the audience that has the freedom of interaction, directing into his own version of possible viewpoints, in this world you can go whereever and do whatever you want it is an open world you hear the other charecter talking to you but you can decide to go with or not and I have done my best to kept poetic and open as possible to give the space and the interpretation open.

This is an example of different techniques I was searching for getting closer to the non-djugemental material; VR with voice over, an interactive world, open to the audience exploration.

I’m trying to make the life details which are usually in the background as the foreground story, the traditional films you see the actors, the story and the fixed lighting, as the scenes that have the spotlight on the protagonist in the foreground and everything else is the background from traffic, people, streets, buildings, commercial banners, etc. I’m interested to make the background more present as a core subject of my film investigating its elements. Telling a story without a narrative, juxtapositioning human conditions of trouble from different places, and more silently staying with this trouble, as in Donna Haraway staying with the trouble, giving and taking back the power position of a narrator to and from the audience supporting in parts to bring together the human unity more than personal individual experiences of certain protagonists. One of the works resembling this approach is the film: Koyaanisqatsi.

I want to stay away from a place where I get to a point where the audience or the viewer might say I agree or I disagree with the point view of the filmmaker, I want to keep it sort of down in a middle line where showing some controversial or disturbing imagery is kind of still photography where you want to let the essence of the subject matter reveal itself rather than the position of the individual point of view.

Saying that I do realize that every action has a direction, as a point of view, that has a direction. that's why I am saying that my film is more of dwelling, where different parts could makeup different stories or conclusions, I am trying to deconstruct the screening experience as if deconstructing the language into letters, that's why I am not sure how I will make "up" my film, in my technique, I am making it "down", so it is in a way an experiment in progress. I am thinking in this way about unbiasing the presentation and the end media product (film, VR, 360o...) and setting for open discussions after...

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