This new virtual reality experience makes you fall asleep immediately after Hiroshima was bombed.

1On August 6th, 945, Shigeru Orimen went to Hiroshima from his country house near Izumi-CHO. He is one of nearly 27,000 students in Hiroshima who are preparing for the coming American air raid. At lunch that day, he brought soybeans, fried potatoes and Dakangtiao.

Shiga was one of nearly 7,200 students who were killed when the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima at 8 am. Three days later, his mother Maozi will use his lunch box to identify his body; The food inside was converted into coal, but the outside was still intact.

Today, his lunch box and Maozi's testimony are part of the archives of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. This object and its story left an unforgettable impression on filmmakers Sashka and Gabe arora, who jointly directed a new virtual reality experience called Days when the World Changed. This film, co-produced with Nobel Media to commemorate the international movement to abolish nuclear weapons (winner of the 20 17 Nobel Peace Prize), premiered at Tribeca Film Festival last week.

The immersive experience begins with explaining the origin, development and deployment of the atomic bomb, and then enters the second chapter, focusing on the consequences of the attack. Visitors can walk through the ruins of the city and see the cultural relics in the explosion, including Shiga's lunch box. In the last chapter, this article turns to the present, describing the frenzied race to create new atomic weapons and the constant threat of nuclear war.

This is not the only work of Rebecca that focuses on thorny topics: among the 34 immersive titles of the festival, some are works against racist heritage, the threat of climate change, AIDS and the ongoing crisis in Syria. This is not the first virtual reality device to win public praise. In June last year,165438+1October, the filmmaker Alejandro ·G·I· rritu won the Oscar for his virtual reality device "CARNE y ARENA", which captured the experience of immigrants crossing the US-Mexico border.

The Day the World Changed is different from these devices in one key respect: most of the materials already exist in file format. The video witness of museum archives and photogrammetry hall (using photography technology to create three-dimensional models) and the destruction of radiation cultural relics on that day make it possible to digitally reproduce the surviving sites. In this sense, this work is more shared with traditional documentaries and explanatory projects led by historians, rather than fantasy or gamification most related to virtual reality.

Arora and Unseld said that it is unique in that the possibility of storytelling brought by immersive technology allows the audience to experience places that were previously inaccessible, such as the inside of the UNESCO World Heritage Atomic Dome, just below the bomb explosion. It is still intact and it is in contact with existing cultural relics in a more heartfelt way.

The future is exciting, although there is some nervousness in the national discussion about the dangers of technological operation. "You must be very careful," arora said. "We think it's important to understand the grammar of virtual reality, not just rely on a simple way to scare people. Because it won't last.

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But what makes visual media immersed in it? This problem attracted Morton Heyliger, one of the early pioneers of virtual reality. 1962, he developed Sensorama, a mechanical device that looks like a combination of arcade game and tonometer. Sensorama includes a chair with a tilted body and a full stereo, a projected 3D image, and even the fragrance released in the short film.

Although the project has never received commercial funding, Heyliger is still fascinated by the possibilities of new technologies. 1992, five years before his death, he issued a declaration detailing this new "century film". He believes that the progress of tape technology will make the spectacular cooperation predicted by Sensorama clearer and cheaper. He declared: "Open your eyes, listen, smell and feel all the gorgeous colors, depths, sounds, smells and textures in the world." . "This is the cinema of the future!

For Heyliger, film is no longer just a visual medium, but an "art of consciousness". The future of film lies not only in its ability to convey clear and true experiences, but also in its ability to grasp the most exciting dimensions of nature and history.

Heyliger's idealism appeared in a particularly dystopian form in the novel "Can Robots Dream of Electric Sheep" by science fiction writer Philip K. Dick a few years later? In this book, post-apocalypse has no meaning or real connection. Survivors yearn for goals and communities to follow a character named Wilbur Mercer. Through a box of empathy, when Mercer was stoned by an invisible enemy, the assistants took Mercer to climb a barren land. Just like self-flogging, this sport shows a pious quality among followers. As someone explained, "This is your way of reaching out to others, and this is your way of not being lonely."

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Dick's warning still makes people feel very appropriate under the background that technology evangelists preach that virtual reality is the "ultimate empathy machine". With the emergence of cutting-edge technology, our sense of position may be shaken, and the boundary between * * * and trauma becomes increasingly blurred. These anxieties were manifested on the day when the world changed. This article sends a clear message that nuclear weapons should be abolished, although the creators of nuclear weapons say they are not interested in peddling ideology.

"You don't want to force something down someone's throat," Unseld said. "But you don't want to leave them all. You should guide them in a way that respects their own rhythm and humanity.

Because virtual reality helps to tell stories about "our spirituality", "our collective guilt", "our collective responsibility" and "our collective innovation ability", "creators must consider the life and experience of the audience, find ways to spread information, and leave unlimited choices. In this sense, it is better to be regarded as a provocation rather than an argument, a story that can attract attention without forcing the audience to wear shoes.

Some tourists can walk through the ruins of the city and meet the cultural relics in the explosion. The creator (on the day when the world changes) may take a page out of an amazing historian's script by using these immersive media. Of course, their digital entertainment may lack the dazzling visual effects of Hollywood, but for them, it is definitely applicable to focus on how to create meaningful participation. Like Lisa, an architectural historian at UCLA's School of Digital Studies and Education? As Lisa Snyder pointed out, vivid images do not always lead to intellectual input.

"When people see the real space of photography, people will accept it," she said. "It is a more difficult leap for people to say,' Oh, I should be critical of this'."

Snyder has been working in what she calls "desktop virtual reality" for more than 20 years. Basically, she created accurate models of historical sites from the Karnak Temple to the Columbus Expo in Chicago, which were used by educators for classroom exercises and museum visitors' guides. Her work is a difficult process and needs the same dedication of traditional historians. She uses architectural guides and archaeological evidence to carefully determine dimensions and uses contemporary resources to create textures and palettes. She said that for every hour spent modeling, she would spend five hours doing research.

"I'm not interested in someone using this visualization to rotate the workpiece," she said. "I want what people will experience, H and experience.

Although the work of historians seems far away at first glance, they are ultimately interested in the same ultimate goal: to give the audience a space to learn, discover and contact with the past. Steven Mintz, a digital historian and professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said that technology can change the outline of this contact, but just looking at it is not enough.

"It interacts with materials needed for history," he said. "The analysis you made makes it meaningful."

As immersion technology goes deeper and deeper into the past to shape today's attitude, Mintz said that it is necessary to avoid being just a spectacle. But he is optimistic about the future, especially if scholars and artists can find ways to cooperate with the support of foundations and cultural institutions. As Arora and Unseld said, the new * * * and whistle can only enhance, not replace, the human elements in the story, even if the immersive technology can influence the audience with unparalleled power of other media.

"I think there are some things in virtual reality that you will naturally feel," Unseld said. "Because you are deprived of your body to some extent, you become a soul, and virtual reality talks to your soul."