EQUAL SPACE
3D space is an ideal place to make complex connections.
I‘ve always loved the idea of virtual reality, yet I’ve never bought a headset in order to experience VR at home. Why? I suppose I (incorrectly) believe that most VR “games” don’t fully explore the mechanical, storytelling and immersive potential for the medium. I’ve played lots of “serious VR games” that do, like Rhett Loban’s Torres Strait Virtual Reality, which engages the player in cultural practices. My recent journey inside the investigative documentary, A Clever Label, was both thought-provoking and a reminder not to discount the specialness of VR so easily.
Creator, Michela Ledwidge, became interested in why it had taken so long for marriage equality to be realised in Australia, given that the population was supportive for perhaps a decade prior to the 2017 plebiscite. During the introduction, “Virtual Michela” raises that The Australian Christian Lobby’s name is “a clever label” because it sounds like it represents all Christians, yet the numbers (relating to census, supportiveness and religion) don’t add up. The experience then invites you to investigate links between the ACL, marriage equality and political process.
To my mind, consenting adults being able to legally marry each other is a no-brainer, so I’m not sure I’d previously cared to learn much more about the wider context of how marriage equality was approached, politically. The data inside A Clever Label is compelling, especially because I actively chose it myself, by grabbing it or pulling it towards me on a string. Clutching content about the abolition of Safe Schools, then organising it into 3D space next to the other things that had “made me feel uncomfortable” (or some other idea) was surprisingly evocative.
Ledwidge says that engaging, in a way that makes sense to each individual, provides a unique and innovative opportunity to explore “difficult to explain topics and controversial data”. She asks, “Could it have an impact on how we debate?” I became particularly interested in how lobby groups are funded, including how donors are disclosed (or not), and created a little floating mess, on that theme. It would be fascinating to see how others arranged related and/or different content, both as an insight into how they think and what I’d missed, or not considered.
If you’re all set up for VR, I’d highly recommend A Clever Label on Steam. I found much of the (often directly destructive) action taken towards LGBTQ+ communities distressing, but all of this content is real and freely available on the internet. Making connections in this way feels so important. Ledwidge also says that Mod is “working on a generic tool, so that it is easier for anyone to slurp their own content into a VR graph and explore it,” and that open source support is also planned for the future. I’d be excited to explore more “controversial data’’ in this way.
I remember playing a cylindrical VR platformer at PAX AU one year. It was cool, but apart from making me thoroughly dizzy, it was really just a platformer. Has A Clever Label convinced me that VR can be more? It did inspire a little flurry of watching VR games online, like Beat Saber and Walkabout Mini Golf, in a way that challenged my perception. Ledwidge suggests, “Now that we have a solid mechanic for investigating threads in VR I’m keen to explore how this can work in fiction, like in a detective game mode.” I’d (almost certainly) buy a headset for that.