I interviewed Mamie Lou director Isabelle Andreani at Venice Immersive 2024. See more context in the rough transcript below.
Here’s her artist’s statement:
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.458] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of VR Podcast. It's a podcast that looks at the structures and forms of immersive storytelling and the future of spatial computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. So continuing my series of looking at different immersive stories from Venice Immersive 2024, today's episode is with a piece called Mammy Lou. So this was inspired by a real life experience of Director Isabel's grandmother passed away. And she went through a whole ordeal with having all these bureaucratic things with the hospital, but also just trying to remain present with her grandmother as she was passing. And so this is sort of a experience to kind of process some of those different experiences. And from the perspective of more of a transcendent spirit, pastor soul who is trying to help people with the passing of this main character in this piece, which is also kind of like this grandmother character. And so it's a lot of from a third person perspective, kind of tabletop scale, but sometimes you jump into first person perspective to either go into different memories of the main protagonist within the context of this piece, or you are trying to just create this sense of presence as you sit with the grandmother as she's in the hospital for more of the first person perspective. So yeah, that's what we're covering on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Isabelle happened on Monday, September 2nd, 2024. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:01:36.515] Isabelle Andreani: So hello, my name is Isabelle Andrueni, and I'm a writer and director of Nanalu, who is in competition in the Venice Biennale 81, blah, blah, blah, for this year. I'm very happy to be here.
[00:01:50.597] Kent Bye: Nice. And maybe you could give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into this space.
[00:01:57.236] Isabelle Andreani: All right. So I've been working in new media for about 10 years in different roles. And I've been collaborating with different authors in new media. So it started all with the transmedia, actually. So different formats. And then I got into XR more recently and basically when I started this project. That's my first project in XR.
[00:02:18.263] Kent Bye: And what was the catalyst for you to want to start to work with the medium?
[00:02:22.364] Isabelle Andreani: It's actually a combination of things. I had started animating some writing workshops in XR for other people with other writers and at the same time I had this personal event which inspired me the story for Nanaloo. And as I was starting to get into the writing and the research, it seemed really important to do it as an experience. But maybe I'll get more into the details of that when I start telling you more about the actual project.
[00:02:52.781] Kent Bye: Yeah, well, maybe it's a good time to either talk about that personal experience that started it or however you want to start to begin to talk about this project and what it is.
[00:03:01.400] Isabelle Andreani: Okay, so Nana Louie is based on a personal story. It's from when I lost my grandmother. She had a stroke and she spent a long stay at the hospital and then in a nursing home before leaving us. And I was really upset by the whole situation because I couldn't make sense of it. It was very long and hard. and so i started doing the some research reading a lot about end of life and end of life care which is a touchy difficult subject when you go through it you're trying to find ways to understand what's going on and i tried to find some answers in the writings of dr elizabeth kubler-ross wrote a lot on the end of life and palliative care, and I found some answers there, especially because she was explaining how it's important to be present with a dying person, and she's also explaining the psychological journey in which the person goes through. So that gave me a lot of understanding what I had just been through. And also I realized I was there, and I could really understand better what could make it a more positive experience. So I went into looking into this presence experience that she was talking about and that connected to the VR space, right? Because at the same time I had these people discussing the presence design and I just connected the two basically. In the sense of the Nanalu project, presence is really maybe in the palliative care dimension. So it's more of a technical thing, actually. The people working in palliative care, they actually learn how to be present to someone, what kind of gestures they should make, the distance, things like that. So that's a technical approach that also helped me think about an experience that can be shared in VR. And of course then I went into writing fiction and making it into something more poetic and metaphorical and something that could really make people feel really good about the whole subject. So this is how, basically.
[00:05:05.979] Kent Bye: Okay. Well, that gives a lot of context for the underlying intentions and motivations for creating the project. And, you know, for a lot of these different XR projects, there's the story part, the interaction part, there's the spatial design part. And so this piece has kind of like a unique combination of those where you're going from third person perspective into first person perspective. And there's the different realms that each of those are representing, but also there's like the underlying story that you're telling with all the characters that are playing it out. And then additional information that comes through these objects that you're interacting with, but also some interaction design that you're doing to kind of facilitate and augment and amplify different moments in the story. And so it's a lot of moving parts of kind of like how all those things like fit together. And so where did you begin with this project in order to start to iterate on trying to figure out how that combination would fuse.
[00:05:59.597] Isabelle Andreani: OK. So part of it is really about trying to think through the eyes, feelings, emotions of the user. So I was trying to imagine what they would feel when they would be inside this piece. So the storyline, basically, I had the actual events that I had been through. So I had very precise facts that I wanted to tell. But then when I was thinking about it, I just thought, This is a hard subject and you don't want to be directly in contact with it. It's very hard. You want to have some distance. So my first thought was, OK, I'm going to try and create this distance. But then I want to also have people really get in contact with the character. It was really like a creative feeling that I needed to do that, to have this distance first to sort of protect the viewer. And then when they're ready, then we go in and we actually get to meet the character and we can go into something more personal and more intimate. So I really had, this was like an inspiration from the start that actually that was in the very first prototype that I bought. But anyway, that's another subject. And then from there, there was also a, I was thinking, how can we empathize with this character's story? And, you know, so there are different types of empathy, right? And then there's the first mirroring thing that when you look at someone and you see their emotion, then you tend to feel the same emotion. But then I also wanted people to understand what was in her mind, the why of the emotions, basically. And so that's where I was thinking it would be interesting to be in her point of view or in her head, not just have her tell the story, but really try and fit in her shoes, basically, or something like that. And that's where I thought it would be nice to get into her memory in first person, basically. So you actually get inside her personal space, like the greenhouse where she's used to gardening and stuff like that, and where she spends a lot of time. And so you get a connection to the character that's more intimate this way. So the different point of views I had early on, I thought, you know, making it this way so we get to empathize even more, you know, different steps to get to really connect to the character.
[00:08:14.386] Kent Bye: Yeah, I noticed that sort of distance, I think, very distinct throughout the development of the story. And there were some moments where I was like, I kind of wish I was in there with the story, but I'm kind of at a distance. And so it felt like having the third person perspective made it such that I did have a little bit more of a dissociative or detached relationship to certain points, because I think there's a big part of like, some of those really emotional intimate moments that like have that mirroring effect and I want to see the facial emotions or expressions or kind of like be in there to be fully present but I'm sort of embodying this omniscient ghost spirit guardian type of characters and so Yeah, I'm wondering if you could elaborate on that deliberate decision because it sounded like you really wanted to have that distance because I was wondering, okay, why am I not in there, in the scene? But it sounds like from the very beginning you wanted that to happen. So I'd love it if you could elaborate on why you made that decision.
[00:09:12.975] Isabelle Andreani: So I guess as I was saying I think my first idea was to protect the viewer from what I felt personally as the most difficult things which is the medical aspects of the project because we get into some subjects that are actually pretty difficult in terms of the treatments that the character is going to go through and there's also some difficulties in psychological decision making because you have this overwhelmed saturated medical staff who's not really valuable for the main character and then also the son he has very difficult time connecting with his mother so all this seemed to me quite hard and I thought it would be interesting to protect the user but also to have him reflect on that so the distance was also a way to say You don't have to feel directly as you are this character but more you analyze the situation from a distance and you can actually better understand what's at stake or what's going on and just not be in the emotional part of it. So that actually, yeah, the intention was to connect with the more reflective part of the viewer at this point because it's maybe the tricky part in terms of what I was trying to convey on the medical process and how we handle people in the end of life. And then getting close in contrast to Nanalu, the character, the person in her personal story. So really this contrast was also interesting for me.
[00:10:40.595] Kent Bye: Yeah. Yeah. Where you're really, there are some moments you are with her and you have this opportunity to reach out and hold her hand or put your arm on her shoulder. And so, yeah, maybe you could elaborate on trying to create these moments of care or presence. Like, yeah, like you said, you're trying to create the thing that's the hardest to do is to have that really deep sense of presence and the things that you were trying to do to cultivate that sense of actually being present for that moment. Even though it's a virtual character and you know it's not real, you're still trying to, like, the best you can from an internal state, reach it through all of the kind of, it's like you're practicing for the future when you actually are in that situation or something, yeah.
[00:11:21.809] Isabelle Andreani: Yeah, it's exactly as you said. It's about practicing this moment. I think because of what I've been through and I wanted to share so to inform people and to invite them or inspire them to be there because it's so hard. Most people, it's too hard. They don't want to be there. So I thought, you know, when you go through the VR and it actually is a positive experience, maybe you can think, OK, actually, it might do something or it might be a good way to handle this kind of situation instead of escaping it and trying to avoid it. actually going in and getting close and seeing that just being there and with the very basic simple gesture you're not even actually touching, you're just warming her up. Just the simple act of presence could actually be something good. And so provide the character with comfort and yourself, you know, because you're helping someone, actually it makes you feel better. So that was the idea. And then, so the actual interactions, it's really based on those, what I was telling you about the actual practice of the in palliative care, because I describe, you know, the right distance, for instance, there's some steps that you need to take, like you can't just go and touch someone. It doesn't work. They need to tell you that it's okay, that they see you, that they somehow accept your presence, and then you can go a bit further. So we spent some time actually trying to design something where there are different steps in the getting closer to Nanalu. There's actually some kind of head tracking. to know that you're connecting through eye contact. So this is all about non-verbal communication, basically. And then when you get this step, then you are actually invited to use your hands directly on the character.
[00:13:02.921] Kent Bye: Okay. And so part of the conceit is also that there's a narrative reason for why you're having this third person perspective that's a little bit more distant because you have like these souls or ghosts or spirits, the spirits from the family members or other ancestors, as it were. And so, yeah, maybe you could talk about the writing of these spirits and kind of like this parallel storyline that is over on top of this that is giving us another mode of being and another perspective to be able to witness the story in.
[00:13:36.457] Isabelle Andreani: Yeah. So I think at first that this is really the fictional or imaginary part because I was trying to understand the whole process and the actual very rational decision making, medical decision making. My feeling was it's taking so long and she's in pain. And why? Why is this going like that? And so I started thinking, OK, what's going on in these moments? When you're about to die, basically, which you don't already know. Anyway, I'm not going to go too deep into that. But there is actually a process to that, which is described by Elizabeth Kribler, which is the stages of grief before dying. And you go through different emotions because basically it's going through letting go and accepting the situation. And so I started writing really the why would this character not let go? What was going on with this character? What's maybe a problem that she didn't solve in her lifetime? and so that's when we actually get into the family story and get to learn you know so nanalu she had this daughter that she lost i mean i don't want to spoil too much but so we are getting into her guilt basically for for a dispute and not being there for a daughter and things like that and and then also the special relationship she has with her granddaughter who cannot be there unfortunately but So the idea is at each step, when you're with her in the hospital, you're in a specific emotion that she's going through. And then going to the memory, you get the explanation for this emotion, which is a memory. So it's a moment in time where it's a part of this little story. That's how I built the entire journey, actually, through giving little pieces of the story based on each emotion.
[00:15:19.437] Kent Bye: And so you kind of mapped out the emotion that you wanted to have. And then from there, the story elements, there's also objects. And so are the objects tying back to the emotion as well?
[00:15:28.368] Isabelle Andreani: So the objects were more to provide some more detailed information. I think it's because at this time I was a bit frustrated, maybe because I wanted to tell more. And I thought, well, you know, this is actually 3D environmental narrative, so you can actually tell things through the objects. And so I started to connect. And I was wondering how I can give more information to the audience. viewer without having, you know, more dialogue or more voice because this is in VR, you know, there's so much. So I was trying to give more space to the viewer to discover the story through the objects. And also that was a way to immerse the object in the actual life of Nanalu, so yeah.
[00:16:08.937] Kent Bye: I guess in terms of the visual aesthetic, it's got very much like the tabletop scale and then you zoom into the first person perspective. But the majority of the piece is in this third person perspective with the tabletop scale. Were there any existing experiences that you were looking to for inspiration that led you to have this visual aesthetic of that tabletop scale?
[00:16:28.530] Isabelle Andreani: There's one I really love, which is paper birds. The paper birds, I mean, it's so cute, and you can actually really put your head in the miniatures, and you can discover some little details in the settings. So this one I really loved, and because I wanted to create this distance, I thought this is a really good way, actually, to... feel this distance thing in the paper that's why you actually get it's a very uh narrative you're actually carried through the emotions of the story uh also but through music and it happened that the composer for nanalu is the same composer as for the paper birds so that part actually is uh maybe it's a bit similar in the digital story in the storytelling that like a distance and uh it's maybe the same relationship to the visual and music that you would get in the paper birds Yeah, so yeah, I would say, but there are others. I mean, I agree with you. It's almost a genre. There are so many like The Line or Arden's Wake or I mean, I've seen many. So yeah, it seemed, you know, it made sense. I thought maybe actually that's almost like a language that people would actually understand if they have seen some VR before or, you know, Gloomy Eyes. I mean, people would understand that. Yeah, you can actually watch part of the story from a distance and being up. Yeah.
[00:17:47.628] Kent Bye: Yeah, well, this story takes place, most of it, within the context of a hospital. And so I know in the United States, at least, healthcare and the whole interface with insurance and everything is a little bit of a nightmare. There's probably other dimensions of this story that would be relevant even more so of the... hellscape of bureaucracy or other things that are happening with when you're in a hospital and have to deal with all the hospital stuff or a lot of decisions or the disconnect that can happen and so i feel like this piece is at the edges of that awkwardness of those distanced you know dehumanization that can happen and Everything that is not encouraging a state of really being deeply present, but one of which being your having to navigate a maze of different stuff. That's the vibe that I got from the piece. And I'm sure there's many embodied experiences of being in these situations that were inspiring that. But it made me think around trying to communicate that through a film or something else where it's not something I've seen a lot of just because it's Usually not dramatically interesting, but it's something that's a part of life that I feel like the XR medium allows us to be embedded into a space and have a little bit more of a theatrical staging of these situations that allow you to maybe dive into some of these frustrations or ways of working through your own grief and frustrations of experiencing that yourself to... have a narrative outlet for that to happen. But within the context of VR, we're able to maybe have a little bit more patience for that type of bureaucratic nightmare. So I don't know if that sort of resonates what you were trying to go for.
[00:19:27.394] Isabelle Andreani: Yeah, actually, so that was part of the storytelling that I wanted to have in the background these problems with the medical system, which is people are in a burnout. They have a difficult time empathizing with the patients. because it's also part of their routine or they have to protect themselves actually because it's so hard sometimes. So it's the overall thing that, yeah, it's kind of a context for the story. And we actually worked that out. So there's this distance with the actual hospital settings, but also we worked that out through the sound. And a lot of times we managed to recreate some kind of background sound that would actually tell some more of the details of the medical process. So that was actually very interesting to work with the VR on that. So you don't have to be directly in this, but it's still there and you can feel it and hear it actually. Yeah.
[00:20:26.240] Kent Bye: Yeah, and one of the main characters from, is it Nanny, Mammy Lou, or?
[00:20:33.083] Isabelle Andreani: It's Mammy Lou, and then I, you know, we translate it all completely in English, so it's Nana Lou.
[00:20:37.465] Kent Bye: Oh, Nana Lou, okay, I was wondering why it was, okay, so Nana Lou, I'll say Mammy Lou. So Mammy Lou is the person who is dying, and then having a son who... I think it's the son, and is the son the father of the character that you're embodying? Or maybe you could elaborate a little bit of the different characters that are coming to play, because there's Mammy Lou, there's the son, there's all the doctors, but there's the spirits. But there's also a granddaughter, are you? Or granddaughter, is that right?
[00:21:06.089] Isabelle Andreani: Yeah, so my point of view on that was not to do exactly the role-playing game, you know, where you would actually embody a character from the story, because I thought it was hard to put yourself into this situation, and it's not really your grandmother, so how are you going to play the daughter or the granddaughter? So my idea was more to give you a character that's more something you can relate to. So the viewer actually plays a passive spirit, and so When we start the experience, we're taken into this big tree of life, which is a fantastic universe where you're surrounded with spirits. And then you get actually, you have two guides. One is the youth and the other is the elder spirit. And they will explain to you your role in all this process of accompanying a dying person. So you're supposed to actually just be there. That's your mission. So at the very beginning of the experience, you're introduced into this group of spirits and you get to see that you are one of them. But then, you know, you can, of course, maybe have some empathy for the son or depending on your age, I suppose, or the granddaughter who is also away, but is mentioned in the story. Yeah.
[00:22:20.874] Kent Bye: Okay, so there is a granddaughter, but you're not embodying her because there are parts where you go from third person into first person, but you're kind of embodying the pastor spirit at that point whenever you're first person perspective.
[00:22:32.321] Isabelle Andreani: Yeah, so you're always going to be the pastor spirit, whether you're floating in the tree of life or whether you're actually incarnating at Nanalu's side. And then maybe the tricky part is when you go into Nanalu's memory, because then you're somewhat in her head. You're not exactly her, but you listen to her and you're next to her. So you're still in spirit, basically. But yeah, I think it was intentional that you could actually sort of feel you're her. just because you're listening to her voice and you're seeing her objects move and what she's doing in her memory.
[00:23:04.204] Kent Bye: Okay, so you are also embodying Mamie Lou and her memories because she's doing objects with her granddaughter. And so it was sort of, okay. So then is the pastor spirit like going into her mind or like, how do we...
[00:23:17.819] Isabelle Andreani: That's exactly how I was seeing it, actually, that you would be in her mind, so you would be like a friendly presence, basically, and you can actually watch whatever she's doing at this point. You know, we were actually looking at making a decision on that, whether we would actually be Nanadu in the memory and see ourselves, for instance, in the glass, or be next to her and more like a presence, and we ended up choosing for being a friendly presence, which... makes it more consistent maybe because basically what I'm saying is you're the passive spirit all along and it doesn't change. It's just you can be in different shapes or dimension.
[00:23:55.117] Kent Bye: Yeah, I really like that idea that you're setting up all these subtle contextual moments that in aggregate combine together to describe the essence of some of the experiences that you had. And one of the elements that is featured is the son seems kind of like either disinterested or not patient or like he doesn't want to make a decision or like what's happening with the son? Why is he so like checked out?
[00:24:20.473] Isabelle Andreani: It's a good point. I think when I talk to people who went through this, and actually it's a detail from the making of the film, but one of the comedians who did the mocap animation for the character actually went through this, and so he put a lot of his personal experience in the way he played the character. This is actually, when it happens, usually you're in shock, and you don't... you don't really realize what's going on. And so this, I think I wanted to describe this, that it's like it's not real. So either you behave normally or you're in a panic and completely freezing. So this character is overwhelmed basically most of the time and he can be present. He has a hard time being present. He has a hard time going to Nanalu. And so most of the story, you can see that he's overwhelmed with the situation. But then in the end, I think there's a resolution for him as well, because he realized, so there are different steps in the medical process, which which go into a therapeutic relentlessness. You know, you mentioned the system, but that's also generating these kind of problems. And at the end, there is also, you know, there is a resuscitation, but that's also a problem that DNR directive also exists in the U.S., I know. And that's when he actually realizes that she's actually leaving, and now is the time to say goodbye. And so... I think in the end we can actually watch this character being present with his mother. And that's also helping with the resolution of the entire piece.
[00:25:49.517] Kent Bye: Nice. And what's interesting to me is just how you can use the medium to tell a story that may have not worked in other media. And did you consider trying to tell this story within a film? And why did you decide to go with VR in order to tell a story?
[00:26:05.305] Isabelle Andreani: Well, actually, I've watched other movies, you know, the feature films like Amour by Annika. It's about the same subject of helping someone go. But it's so hard. You know, it was so hard to watch. And I really wanted to give something that was positive and inspiring and making people feel inspired to be there. So I couldn't do that. I couldn't do like just put you in the situation and describe it in a realistic way. I had to In contrast, I really wanted to have some magic. The animation was great. I think it really was the right format to actually tell this subject because otherwise it's so hard. I mean, yeah. So I think that that's why. Yeah, it's both the animation and the VR was for the presence that I was telling you about earlier. Yeah.
[00:26:55.392] Kent Bye: Great. So what's next for Mamie Lou?
[00:26:59.449] Isabelle Andreani: So I've been receiving some very nice feedback and people are moved. It's very emotional. I think every time someone comes to me and talks about it, they have a personal story. So I'm really happy that they can actually invest experience this way, that they can actually project their own problems. that can probably either you know help you go through this in a positive way or because i mean some people don't have they they can't be there so i think going through this experience it's a way to relieve in a you know and resolve something that maybe uh was still a problem so at this point yeah so i think it could help people in grief And then we're trying to see how maybe to organize some events so we can actually also open a place for dialogue on the subject because it's not so easy. And once you've seen this, then maybe you're more open to talk about it. That was kind of my point that people actually come to me and want to talk about it. So maybe it would be interesting to have maybe like people watching it in VR and then we can have a talk. So we are actually looking into organizing some events on that. But more concretely, the piece is going to be on the platforms, it should be on Meta, online, I think by the end of the year. And then we're also looking into other ways to distribute the piece.
[00:28:24.150] Kent Bye: OK, so this is an experience that you went through and wanted to create, like an XR experience that started to try to get at some of the essence of some of the experiences that you had. And so were there any other films or any other stories that you felt like were trying to capture the essence of the aspects of the story? Or did you find when you were searching for something that could reflect some of your own experiences that you just weren't finding anything?
[00:28:49.747] Isabelle Andreani: You mean like something that would actually show this presence that you can have with someone in this situation? It's not a very common subject. I think the specifics of the, you know, there are legal aspects to this and I was mentioning the DNR. I've seen it in not maybe like an entire movie on it, but sometimes in a show or as part of a movie, you can see that they are trying to inform people that it exists, that you can do this, which helps with the decision-making process and the medical decision-making process. but for me it's really about this experience and that is difficult to show in a liner movie because you're not in it so you don't actually get to act i think part of this was uh getting people to feel the emotion like you would in a movie but then they can actually act on it and that's to me more powerful like you can actually get people to like you said, almost practice or train and they're in action and that gives them some power over the story here and maybe at some point the situation.
[00:29:56.001] Kent Bye: Yeah, I guess that's maybe the framing of like, I was asking that question in the context of the story being told, but it's actually more of a training to have a sort of embodied presence. So it's more of a training video in that sense, rather than a story. It is a story, but that kind of like the heart of it is to try to like start to mimic some of those different situations so that they're not so totally foreign, but you can kind of like go through that. Yeah.
[00:30:21.616] Isabelle Andreani: Well, I guess, you know, I first wanted this to be a film, right? So there's an actual story. It's animation. There are some little characters that are really cute and you get to journey. So, I mean, I don't want to get people in the idea that it's maybe like an actual training or educational project. It's really an animation film. But then I think in the art, yes, I wanted to give them something to take away. And that's maybe an inspiration for their life. Yeah.
[00:30:50.424] Kent Bye: Yeah. And I think it's also like the type of project that is creating situation that is going to trigger a lot of memories for people that they can project themselves into. And it's not something that I've personally gone through yet. And so there's a bit of a disconnect there from my own personal experience. And so it's a little bit more abstracted. And so it's like, I'm Seeing the character as the character that I'm just meeting rather than drawing upon my memories of previous experiences that I'm able to use the virtual character as a proxy of something that is allowing me to kind of work through something else in my life. And so, yeah, I feel like depending on what people are bringing into the experience, then they're going to have a range of different ways that they're tapping into different memories and experiences that are being invoked by an experience like this.
[00:31:35.256] Isabelle Andreani: Yeah, I agree. I mean, you put it perfectly. Thank you so much for actually describing things like that. I think it's, you know, for any piece of art or work piece that, you know, or film or whatever, you usually get what you put in. So, yeah, I guess it depends, you know, and you're actually lucky that you don't have anything. there so yeah i think it's going to be very different for different people and i again people come to me with one detail and they say oh this you know and that actually puts them in in the state and then they go through the experience from there so yeah what's it been like for you to show it here at venice and to have people come up and share like some of these very deep personal intimate moments that you're evoking in your piece Yeah, I'm a bit amazed actually that people would just go to you and tell you something so personal. But that's something really I wanted to share. That was the idea from the beginning, this sharing thing. For me, the most important is I think that it really helps. I mean, I've seen people at different stages. People come to me and they tell me, so they're more quiet and they have time to think about it. But I've had also, sometimes I was there at the end when they take off the headset and they're like a bit crying or whatever. That was actually very overwhelming for me. So, yeah. But then that actually, I think it's great when you get this opportunity things out of yourself. Sometimes it's good to cry, basically. That's how I feel. That's how I actually felt sometimes watching it myself.
[00:33:14.706] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, finally, what do you think the ultimate potential of these types of immersive stories might be and what they might be able to enable?
[00:33:27.160] Isabelle Andreani: You've probably seen it here actually this year. I think we're getting deeper into the emotional aspects of things, the psychological aspects of life and being able to connect or talk or have some kind of a meaningful exchange with the audience and other people on some very deep things. And I think VR is actually getting in there and getting also more personal with people. Maybe when you watch a movie, you're completely taken by the mirroring aspect of empathy, where you see emotion on the screen, and so you feel the same emotion, and then you adapt to that. So actually, you're not yourself. You're somewhat in the story. But in VR, you can be yourself. It's your own emotion, and there's space for you. So you go deeper into yourself. And to me, that's fascinating, actually, to go through this kind of experience.
[00:34:22.156] Kent Bye: Awesome. And is there anything else that's left unsaid? Any other final thoughts that you have for the rest of the immersive community?
[00:34:29.203] Isabelle Andreani: Well, the medium is amazing. I really wish, hope that it continues to generate so much creation. Yeah, well, I think I'm a bit concerned, actually, about having narrative content accessible to people and getting people aware that these experiences exist. I think here in Venice, we have some amazing experiences. And I'm a bit maybe frustrated or worried that they don't get the audience they deserve, basically. So I hope in the coming years, we find more ways to connect to the audience. Yeah.
[00:35:08.120] Kent Bye: Yeah, certainly distribution and getting more awareness onto these stories, especially from the larger existing distribution companies who are not as interested in having the stories because, you know, they're not, like, getting people coming in and having lots of playtime and retention. I think there's a certain amount of, like, the numbers that are being optimized for are very much kind of driven by retention, lots of people using it, and, yeah, just... It seems like the stories are kind of falling through the cracks of something that is the things that the companies that are producing the headsets just seem kind of blind to the cultural, the value of what it means to use these technologies to tell stories. So, yeah, I don't know. It feels like a grand shame that there's a bit of a disconnect between the type of amazing work that's happening here versus what is really exalted and promoted by the major companies that are pushing for XR technology.
[00:36:06.872] Isabelle Andreani: Actually, I'm thinking digital is a complicated space to be in. And I think in a way, with all the digital devices, we feel overwhelmed, in a rush, in this acceleration of time. And then in VR, suddenly we can Find the space back, find the time back. This is a place, there are a lot of contemplation or quieter experiences that are offered. So I think it's still digital. So it's good to actually counterbalance whatever is happening in a digital space in general, the VR part. So yeah, I hope it's like this counterbalancing force in the digital space, basically. Yeah.
[00:36:47.665] Kent Bye: So, yeah, thanks again for joining me here on the podcast to break down a little bit more about your process and journey of Mamie Lou to be able to tell this very personal, intimate story in a way that, yeah, has this kind of beautiful embodying of a spirit and kind of going back and forth and, yeah, just being there in this moment and really trying to be present. And, yeah, I feel like... There's a certain amount of poetry of kind of like embodying this other transcendent realm of ideal form, like whatever the spirit realm that they're in, you kind of see the two realms and going back and forth. And yeah, also just a meditation on memory and identity and family and, you know, these hospital contexts. And so I think it's an experience that I don't think would work in other mediums. And it's something that's kind of like pouring forth, like the affordance of VR is able to tell these new types of stories that we haven't seen as much before. So yeah. Yeah, just really enjoyed learning a little bit more of your intentions and to kind of understand some of the decisions that you made along the way. So, yeah, thanks again for joining me here on the podcast.
[00:37:48.711] Isabelle Andreani: Well, thank you so much. Yeah, it's great to have a chance to discuss with you, especially on this technical subject of presence design and stuff. I mean, it's great to have you give us a space to talk about these things. Yeah, thank you.
[00:38:04.807] Kent Bye: Thanks again for listening to these episodes from Venice Immersive 2024. And yeah, I am a crowdfunded independent journalist. And so if you enjoy this coverage and find it valuable, then please do consider joining my Patreon at patreon.com slash voices of VR. Thanks for listening.
