Fourth VR: Indigenous virtual reality practice

Abstract

Indigenous creators are currently using virtual reality (VR) tools, techniques and workflows in wide-ranging geographical locations and across multiple VR formats. Their radical adaptation of this new technology folds together cultural traditions and VR’s unique audiovisual configurations to resist dominant, particularly colonial, frameworks. Within this context, we ask how VR is being used to create space and capacity for Indigenous creatives to tell their stories and how do Indigenous creatives negotiate Eurocentric modes of production and distribution? To answer these questions, our Fourth VR database provides a snapshot of Indigenous VR works. By drawing on three case studies drawn from the database – The Hunt (2018), Future Dreaming (2019) and Crow: The Legend (2018) – as well as the wider patterns emerging across the database, it is possible to see an Indigenous-centred VR production framework. This framework is diverse but also contains repeated trends such as the ability to use VR to express and realize Indigenous Futurism; foreground native languages in virtual worlds; provide new articulations of Indigenous activism; embody connections between the past, present and future and demonstrate the interconnectivity of all living things. In turn, this growing body of work, engaging with the full spectrum of VR formats and tools, provides a rich contribution to the wider arena of VR practice.

What are the risks of Virtual Reality data? Learning Analytics, Algorithmic Bias and a Fantasy of Perfect Data

“…Virtual reality (VR) is an emerging technology that presents a myriad of political and ethical issues in the context of the increasing datafication of society. Nascent discussions around VR – in education and more broadly – typically focus on the promising potential of VR for immersion and simulation (see Daniela, 2020; Liu et al, 2017), but in the context of what we observe as an emerging tradition of ‘critical VR studies’ (Bollmer, 2017; Egliston and Carter, 2020; Evans, 2019; Golding, 2019; Harley, 2019; LaRocco, 2020; Saker and Frith, 2019, 2020; Wallis and Ross, 2020), here we focus our attention on the data extraction capabilities of VR. As we have recently argued elsewhere, VR devices represent one of ‘the most data-extractive digital sensors we’re likely to invite into our homes in the next decade’ (Carter and Egliston, 2020), yet we are not aware of any critical discussions of the application of learning analytics to VR in higher education or elsewhere, or the necessary speculation (or anticipation, see Stilgoe et al, 2013) regarding the dangers that VR may present in further accelerating the datafication of education and learning.…”

Doing Digital Migration Studies:

“…In contrast to VR advocates who suggest that VR films on displacement provide a new-and better-way of knowing displacement through "an actual experience," some filmmakers challenge assumptions of VR's ability to render others' experiences transparent and accessible. For instance, Wallis and Ross (2021) explore how Indigenous creatives use VR to centre Indigenous sovereignty, to tell Indigenous-centred stories and to resist colonial, Eurocentric modes of production and distribution. They actively incorporate power relations and the "opacity of being" (Glissant, 1997).…”

A Virtual Reality–Assisted Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for and With Inuit in Québec: Protocol for a Proof-of-Concept Randomized Controlled Trial

“…Because of its relatively low cost, flexibility, and immersion, VR has been used in Indigenous contexts, such as in art, storytelling, culture, language, and transferring cultural heritage [20][21][22][23]. There is interest in digital technology solutions for Indigenous health and mental well-being; however, most follow a format of conventional psychotherapy via telemedicine [21,24].…”