I spoke to Michaela Ternasky-Holland at the New Images Festival 2023 about the white paper titled “Deepening Engagement and Learning Impact through Virtual Reality Activations: Case Study Project: On the Morning You Wake (to the End of the World.” See more context in the rough transcript below.
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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 So in today's episode, I'm going to be featuring an unpublished interview that I did with Michaela Tarnaski-Holland at New Images in Paris, France. It was back in 2023, so there was a white paper that she collaborated with a number of different academics, as well as with Games for Change, and to share some best practices for distributing and exhibiting some of these different impact projects. And so they traveled on the morning you wake to the end of the world, like all over the world to like all these different locations. They showed it to a lot of really interesting different audiences in the context of nuclear nonproliferation. And so they wrote up a white paper titled Deepening Engagement and Learning Impact through Virtual Reality Activations, Case Study Project on the Morning You Wake to the End of the World. Co-authors of Jan Plass, Bruce Homer, Michaela Tanesky-Holland, and Aaron Budd. So this is a pretty extensive white paper around the different processes of immersive exhibition. And I just wanted to have a chat at the closing ceremonies of New Images of 2023. And yeah, just talk around this white paper that had just been released. As a side note, there's actually a academic exhibition. named Sandra Gudenzi, who is out of the University of College London. And so she's actually working on a survey, XR games for good, making a case for impact. And so she's really trying to do like from more of academic research, like how do you actually establish the role of immersive and XR? What's the evidence there in terms of making the larger case for how immersive storytelling could have either a deeper or different impact for social change? So she's actually in the process of doing a survey. I'll put a link in the show notes. I don't know when she's going to stop taking notes. But if you are in the realm of doing impact producing and you do have some experience of having either data or experiences of showing and exhibiting some of these different immersive storytelling projects in the context of an impact campaign, then definitely check out that survey. And hopefully you'll have Sandra on when she is wrapping up all of her research just to get a little bit more details for you. some of the different findings that she's had so far. But at least this is one of the first white papers that is starting to gather some of, at least the processes, if not some of the hard scientific data when it comes to the actual impact of these immersive stories. So I'll put a link in the show notes to the PDF that you can go check out, but you can also hear a lot more context to this white paper in the context of this conversation. So we're covering all that and more on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Michaela happened on Friday, April 7th, 2023 in New Images in Paris, France. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:02:53.530] Michaela Ternasky Holland: My name is Michaela Ternasky-Holland, and I am currently an XR creative strategist for Games for Change and an impact producer. So my role is really thinking about not necessarily a distribution strategy for social impact XR experiences, but actually what I like to call a mobilization strategy. Distribution tends to be focused a lot on income and getting revenue back in the door, which I think is really important. versus mobilization has its own value because it's really focused on the specific audiences you want to reach. So if you're looking to reach policymakers, students, universities, if you're looking to reach activists or a specific community, a mobilization strategy, right? We want to get this policy made. We want to get these people aware of this issue is more of how I think of it, because then you're leaving out this idea of, oh, we have to make money for the project and more about this idea of we're raising money specifically to spend the money on the project. Similar to what you do in production, actually. So sometimes I think the work I do as an impact producer tends to be a catch-all of everything after the experience is finished, but also rethinking and helping remaster or reorganize the way we think about impact.
[00:03:58.116] Kent Bye: Great. Maybe you could give a little bit more context as to your background and your journey into becoming an impact producer.
[00:04:04.622] Michaela Ternasky Holland: Yeah, so it's really unique. I feel like this podcast has seen me grow and transform in so many different ways. I actually started as a literary journalism major at UC Irvine, but very quickly dropped out of school to go do a nine month contract on Disney Cruise Line. And while I was dancing on Disney Cruise Line and dancing at Disneyland, I really realized that there was a very huge power in immersive interactive storytelling and the ability to let people have agency or to let people explore a story or let people feel immersed in a story. And I wanted to bring some of that level of immersion, interactivity, agency to journalism. And so I started thinking about ways we could blend mediums of written word, of audio, of video, and that used to be called transmedia. And then I found VR and AR and AI and these kind of emerging digital mediums in 2016. I was like, that's what I want to do. And so I continued to pursue that as a student. I recently graduated. I finished my degree, went back, but didn't know how I was going to break into the industry until I was given the opportunity to work at Time magazine. So I worked at Time Magazine and did a lot of their 360 videos, some of their volumetric room scale experiences. And from there I said, you know, I wanna bring these tools beyond traditional journalism and into the realm of social impact. I wanna be able to really say, this is what the project is standing for. This is the action you can take. This is the learning that I as like a creative and I as a producer want the people to take away. And so I did a little stint learning about physical interaction and physical activity and physical fabrication with the Museum of Ice Cream. And then I returned back to, AR, VR, really with the mindset to be like, I want to create impactful experiences, both in this fictionalized realm and in the nonfiction realm. And that's, I think, really come together nicely with my current work at Games for Change, because Games for Change stands for that specificity in impact. And the project we've been working on is called On the Morning You Wait to the End of the World.
[00:05:57.978] Kent Bye: Okay. Yeah. And it's a little over a year ago now that last time I talked to you about this project of on the morning you wake to the end of the world at South by Southwest, where it ended up taking the top prize there. And then basically for the past year, been touring this around all over the world. And you just are here at the new images festival, presenting a white paper that is going to be coming out here by the time, you know, we're speaking now, like sometime next week or so, but this is a lot of your learnings for what's it. take to be able to do these different types of exhibitions, but also like I guess you had a number of different questions and research that you were doing. And so maybe you could just tell me a bit about what's happened in the last year and what you're presenting here at New Images.
[00:06:36.428] Michaela Ternasky Holland: Yeah. So it's been an amazing year. We basically took a lot of the different leads throughout the nuclear weapons threat field that we had. So the conversations with the United Nations, the conversations with the International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons, the conversations with Nobel Peace Center, the Bulletin for Atomic Scientists, and we basically acted upon those conversations, right? We were able to raise money specifically focused on the impact campaign. We were able to bring in a group of impact fellows who were subject matter experts, and we took those expertize and we took that funding and we went and did activations and screenings all over the world, both on a festival circuit for the traditional VR circuit that Australia managed. But then on the Games for Change side, we did a more focused on impact. So we did activations at the United Nations, activations at the Nobel Peace Center. We did an activation in Times Square, raising awareness about nuclear weapons threat. And we also brought the experience to many different communities in Hawaii, universities, high schools, as well as a policy convening. So like the first It's a very long title. The first meeting of state parties for the nonproliferation treaty, the first meeting of state parties for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, these pieces of legislation that live on the United Nations stage that actually make nuclear weapons an illegal piece of the geopolitical puzzle. And we actually brought On the Morning You Wake to those spaces where diplomats were meeting about those treaties, forming new alliances. adding countries to those treaties. And it was a really compelling way of saying, wow, we're really here where the work is happening. And we really get to be a conversation starter around this work, which has been amazing. And beyond that, it's not just about what we did with screening the VR, but it was about the wraparound materials we made around the VR experience. So when I think about impact, Just like my background with Disney, I don't just think about the ride or the VR experience. I think about the onboarding, the queue. How do we get people talking about nuclear weapons? How do we get people thinking about them before they even get into headset? And then how do we think about the ways we connect them back to this issue or this topic after they get out of headset? And what we built was a pre and post survey experience. And the surveys didn't feel monotonous. They didn't feel research heavy. They were really an extension of the VR. And we also did these activities around nuclear weapons threat and thinking about it and asking people what they want to learn more about and connecting them to organizations. And so using those surveys, we said this could be really valuable research around audience engagement, around audience informal learning, because On the Morning Awake is a curricular piece. it's a piece of storytelling. So we're really thinking about how does it create informal learning moments for our audience members? How do our audience members feel like they can engage with the piece? And then those questions lead to our audience members impacted, yes or no. And that's really what we're exploring in the research section of this. The beauty of what we were able to do too is that On the Morning Awake has a 2D version. So we were able to take the 2D version and the VR experience and do a comparison study. So now we have this like really robust material of all the screenings we did specifically with VR that we've taken and we've synthesized into really valuable research and really valuable data for the community to use. But we've also taken this comparison study as to say, why does VR work this way? Why is VR creating these kinds of numbers? So really, that's also a valuable piece of data that we want to give back to the community. And that's like really to highlight the research side of the white paper. And then there's a best practices side of the white paper, which is if you want to get into this, right, if you want to create these partnerships, if you want to create these level of VR screenings, these pop ups or these activations, here's the things you're going to need to think about. Here are the things you're going to want to do that we did at Games for Change that we learned about to make it scalable, flexible and really transportable.
[00:10:23.305] Kent Bye: Wow. And so that's, first of all, a lot of really amazing stuff that you've been doing over the last year. And I guess the first question I want to ask is, were you going to each of these places for you personally, or were you doing other stuff? And I just want to hear a little bit about what it's been like to kind of travel around the world with this.
[00:10:38.649] Michaela Ternasky Holland: Yes, so I've probably been to almost all of the activations we did all over the world, which was amazing just on a personal level. But I think what was really compelling to me was the ability to see different ages, different backgrounds, different people who spoke different languages. and even though we would provide them with a closed caption version of the experience in their native language as much as possible seeing just the relative movement that the piece had like people were physically moved getting out of the headset people were physically ready to take action after they got out of that headset people really felt like the piece resonated with them whether they were a high school student in the nobel peace center coming to the nobel peace center on a field trip or if they were an indigenous person in New Zealand coming to the Dock Edge Festival and going through the experience. And I think that, to me, was amazing. And also, like, I didn't have a team of 30 people. I think I talked to people a lot who are like, well, it must be nice, Michaela, you have this amazing team of 30 people working on this impact campaign. And the reality is I have a team of three people. I have myself, the impact producer. I have a production manager, Aaron Budd, who helps me with the production of the actual activations. I have Tanisha Singleton, who is a digital content strategist, who helps me a little bit with the social media and the website updating. And then after that, we're really just a team who are empowering and equipping local people, powering and equipping amazing production assistants, production coordinators, museum venues, museum educators. And we go, we give them the equipment, we give them the teachings, we give them the learning, and then we can leave for a few weeks and they can keep managing and running it themselves, which I think I think a lot of times There's a carelessness in how we train and teach people how to use the VR wisely and how to use the VR with care and how to onboard first time users to VR. And all of those kind of sticky points that we figured out at Games for Change to make it easier, to make it simple, to make it tangible is all in the best practices part of this white paper.
[00:12:44.460] Kent Bye: Okay. Well, yeah. And I've had a chance to kind of skim through this white paper and there's a lot of information in there that it kind of starts with some of the studies or at least the comparison stuff. And so maybe you could set a little bit of a context for this question that you're asking in terms of comparing these different versions and the impact of VR. And so what were some of the conclusions that you're able to find from these comparison studies?
[00:13:07.560] Michaela Ternasky Holland: totally so one of the first things we found was age is not a factor it didn't matter if the person was 75 or 16 there was a clear indication that they were very happy with the fact that they were able to use vr and they were very surprised by how easy it was to use the vr and they were also meant that usually when they were excited and happy to use the VR as a tool to see this experience, it also meant that they learned something new. And it didn't matter what age we were talking about. For the most part, everything ranked very high. A majority of participants, two thirds of participants, would say at the end of the experience that they were ready to learn more about the topic. And then at that point, I believe the number is over 50% of participants were willing to take further action, right? So that right there is informal learning. I learned something new. I want to learn more and engagement. I learned something. I want to learn more and I want to take action. I want to get involved. And that's really where I find impact as that like How do you measure impact, Michaela? I measure impact by the engagement of the audience. Are they willing to leave an email? Are they willing to leave a phone number? Are they willing to take extra action? What kind of action do they want to take? Direct action? Do they want to do research action? Do they want to learn about an organization? Do they want to sign a petition? And we gave them all those options to choose from. But also them saying, hey, I was engaged and I learned something new. To me, all that says is like we are creating an impact in our audience. Something else we found was that VR heightens emotion compared to 2D. So while people learn something new from the 2D experience because it's an amazing story, people learn something new from the VR because it's an amazing experience. What we found was where VR starts to pull away from 2D is in the emotional impact. people were feeling more positive emotions from doing the VR than they would do the 2D. So more positive emotions means they felt more energized, they felt more inspired, and they weren't just feeling more positive emotions, they were feeling these emotions on a more intense level. So they weren't just feeling it a little bit in their body. They were feeling it to an 80 to 90% in their body. I'm feeling very energized. I'm feeling very excited. And that to us says, well, if they are heightened in emotion and they are more positive in those emotions, that means the learning that they're gathering can be expanded. It's a deeper learning. It's a deeper memory you're creating for these people. It's not just, oh, I saw this really cool 2D documentary and I forgot about it a week later. It's like, no, I felt energized and excited and very intensely felt those things by this VR experience. And so that's really exciting to us because that really is we think for on the morning wake and for more social impact focused experiences those are the keys to saying this does work this does create deeper learning deeper engagement deeper understanding of this issue that can be very existential or an issue that can feel very black and white for certain people a nuclear weapons threat isn't necessarily a topic or issue that people feel a warm fuzzy about it can be very alienating and very existential and very crisis oriented
[00:16:15.777] Kent Bye: So what were some of the other big points that you were trying to make in this white paper then?
[00:16:19.920] Michaela Ternasky Holland: I think the biggest point that we were trying to make through the research is to really say VR is a very viable tool, but it takes a little bit of extra work to use it. right through the research we said vr is a very viable tool it's a very valuable tool and we didn't just say it's valuable and viable we said in these venues so we have all the data specifically for museums that we did we have all the data specifically for the private events we did And we have all of the data specifically for all the open to the public events that we did. So you can literally look at the data and say, wow, I want to do something open to the public. OK, let me look at this data. Let me look at how they did it. Let me look at this private event. Let me look at this museum. Right. And so we're saying VR is a viable, valuable tool to be used for audience engagement, for audience learning, for audience impact. And then the best practices side of the white paper is and here's how you do it. And I think that's where I get really excited about our white paper, because it's not just research-focused, it's also hands-on field reporting of saying, like, don't do this. Like, don't create a VR experience where you don't have a clear flow of traffic, because people will get very confused and they will get very frustrated. Don't set up a VR experience where you don't have a place for people's personal belongings because people will trip. People will have their bags everywhere. Try when you're working with a partner to really get a partner's commitment as to where in the venue you are, not just the fact that they'll provide you with venue space. If you're traveling abroad, make sure you bring proper power conversions. All these things that we learned from all of our mistakes, right? Trying to give back to the industry, not just XR creators either, Kent. I would love to see this white paper be utilized by art curators, by museum exhibitors who are like, how would I do this VR thing? Oh, wow, here's a white paper of how they did it at the Museum of Moving Image. We literally have a diagram breakdown of our floor plan, calling out all the things we designed and why we designed it this way. We had two different ticketing systems with the Nobel Peace Center. People could come and buy a museum admission and then sign up for the VR for free. For Museum of Moving Image, we had people pay for a screening VR ticket. And then if they wanted a museum admission ticket, they'd pay a little extra. So two very different financial strategies, too. And all that gets portrayed in the white paper in a really clear, clean way that I hope people think this isn't an overwhelming amount of information that my hope is that they can see the information they want to see, take it and run with it.
[00:18:43.004] Kent Bye: Yeah. And sometimes it's hard when you talk about impact, when you're talking about like at the political level of these decision makers and stakeholders. But I'd love to hear any reactions or anecdotes that you have to share of showing it to these decision makers and these politicians that are at the nexus of potentially making these decisions that are going to be impacting the entire world.
[00:19:01.874] Michaela Ternasky Holland: Yes. So what we found with government policymakers is that they actually still learn something new about nuclear weapons, even though they work in that field or even though they were present for an event specifically focused on this issue. And what we find is that a lot of the things they are learning is around humanity. It's around, oh, I didn't realize that nuclear weapons could affect one on one people like this. Right. The goal that Atlas V and Archer's Mark had going into the project, the goal that Princeton University had and Games for Change had was to humanize the issue. And what we're finding is government policymakers feel like they have finally seen a more humanized version of this experience because of the VR. not because they're sitting in these policymaking meetings at the United Nations, but because they walk over to the weird little chair and put on a headset. And I think that's huge because the woman who actually doctored and helped execute the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons watched the experience and said, I have five people that needs to see this experience right now. to help them make the decision to join the treaty, to help make their countries join the treaty. And I can't tell you if it was a one-to-one, but when we were at the United Nations in Vienna for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, three new countries joined the treaty. And we couldn't tell you if it was VR that did that, but we were at least there as a resource. And we knew we had diplomats and people representing countries coming and watching it.
[00:20:30.623] Kent Bye: Maybe we should start to wrap up here. Yeah. So yeah, we're obviously at the after party here of the New Images Festival. And so yeah, I guess I'll ask if there's any other big major things that you want people to take away from this white paper.
[00:20:44.594] Michaela Ternasky Holland: I would say don't be a stranger. Like, if the white paper resonates with you and if there's something in there you find interesting, feel free to reach out to me and let me know. If there's something you feel like is missing from the white paper and you're like, Mikayla, I still don't understand how you all did this or that, then reach out to me because i would want the white paper to be a dialogue creator i want the white paper to be a conversation starter i don't want it to be a be all end all i want it to grow and expand like we're talking to estrella right now about maybe adding a chapter about distribution because with on the morning you wake we worked with them as the main distributor while we were the main mobilizer right and there was um potentially the nobel peace center wants to do a a chapter about peacemaking in there like i want this to not just be a a one-time publishing resource What I love about the idea of making something iterative and alive is that the community themselves can add to it and grow it and expand it.
[00:21:39.251] Kent Bye: Awesome. And finally, what do you think the ultimate potential of virtual reality might be and what it might be able to enable?
[00:21:46.815] Michaela Ternasky Holland: Oh. Honestly, the potential of virtual reality is going to be as connected to the type of creators that are in this space. I feel like I've said this to you before, Kent. I think that the potential of VR is limitless, but we limit ourselves by who we allow to explore the use of VR. For me, I think I would love to see more diverse creators from different backgrounds getting involved in a VR experience. I would love to see different issues that haven't been touched upon being made for VR. I would love to see more co-productions beyond just French and Taiwanese and like see new co-productions pop up between different countries because that to me is the beauty of VR is that it is something so expansive that we can literally make anything in a headset for people to experience or do or play with, that the more diversity of thoughts, the more diversity of opinions, and the more that those opinions and thoughts can blend together, the more interesting the experiences and content will be. And I hope that we can also find one day where VR is also a solutions oriented field, not just a story oriented field. So I want to see VR being used in health and wellness. I want to see VR being used in education. I want to see VR being used by businesses. And it's just like we use our smartphone for both entertainment and for day to day practicality. My hope is to see VR be used in the same way.
[00:23:15.621] Kent Bye: Is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say to the broader immersive community?
[00:23:22.495] Michaela Ternasky Holland: I would just say this is a very special Community and I always say this is that you can get involved it doesn't matter who you are like if you're a lawyer if you're a doctor like XR is a medium it's not a it's not a degree, and so, if you're curious about what this is if you're curious about. what this community is like, you can reach out to us and I think you will find it's a very open community and it's at a precipice of pushing towards one certain way versus another certain way. And I just have a huge call to be like, anyone who wants to get involved to make it ethical, to make it really diverse, come get in the party now, because it might be too late in a few years. And I don't know what a few years hold for us. So it's a very delicate point that we're in in this industry. And to the community members who have been here, thank you for still being here. And really, like, don't give up what you're trying to do, because what I always like to say to my friends who are in this space is at least we tried, right? whether it goes off or never goes off, like at least we get to be a part of this sense of we're trying and we're kind of fumbling in the dark and every now and again, we find a little piece of something that we can hold on to. And my hope is this white paper is one of those little pieces as we keep all stumbling in the dark, figuring out what this is.
[00:24:40.885] Kent Bye: Yeah, well, it sounds like you've had quite an epic year and traveling around the world with this as a project. And yeah, I'm really happy to see that this white paper that you've been able to produce to kind of distill down all this information and share back out the community. So really happy to have a brief chance to catch up with you here and congratulations on all the different success you've had and for also producing this piece of knowledge that you're going to be able to share to the community. So thanks again for joining me here on the podcast.
[00:25:05.663] Michaela Ternasky Holland: Thank you for having me. And before I go, I should just shout out our co-authors and researchers who worked on this white paper with us, Jan Plas and Bruce Homer, who are two amazing professors. One specializes in psychology, the other specializes in design. And both have been doing amazing work in the world of immersive interactive technology for education and learning. And they were an amazing, amazing research partners on this. And there's no way I could have done this white paper without them being our close collaborators. So just want to give them a huge shout out before we wrap up.
[00:25:37.956] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, thank you. Thanks again for listening to this episode of the Voices of VR podcast. And if you enjoy the podcast, then please do spread the word, tell your friends, and consider becoming a member of the Patreon. This is a supported podcast, and so I do rely upon donations from people like yourself in order to continue to bring this coverage. So you can become a member and donate today at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. Thanks for listening.
