How to Make Immersive Technologies More Equitable: Confronting the Medium’s Colonial Legacies and Reimagining the Creative Process
Today, immersive technologies—like virtual reality—are celebrated as natural empathy machines, capable of fostering meaningful cross-cultural understanding. I interrogate this assumption through my case study of an early twentieth-century immersive, interactive ride: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (19...
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ftunivryersojs:oai:ojs.journals.library.ryerson.ca:article/1534 2023-05-15T15:12:27+02:00 How to Make Immersive Technologies More Equitable: Confronting the Medium’s Colonial Legacies and Reimagining the Creative Process Gedal, Anna 2022-01-30 application/pdf https://journals.library.ryerson.ca/index.php/InteractiveFilmMedia/article/view/1534 https://doi.org/10.32920/ifmj.v2i1.1534 eng eng Interactive Film & Media Research Network https://journals.library.ryerson.ca/index.php/InteractiveFilmMedia/article/view/1534/1459 https://journals.library.ryerson.ca/index.php/InteractiveFilmMedia/article/view/1534 doi:10.32920/ifmj.v2i1.1534 Copyright (c) 2022 Anna Gedal https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 CC-BY-NC-ND Interactive Film & Media Journal; Vol. 2 No. 1 (2022): New Narratives, Racialization, and Global Crises; 149-158 2564-4173 virtual reality Immersive technologies cultural production amusement parks colonial legacies interactivity antiracist allyship design justice vr documentary vr for good cultural storytelling media theory immersive environments Coney Island speculative design info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion Conference Papers, Proceeding Papers 2022 ftunivryersojs https://doi.org/10.32920/ifmj.v2i1.1534 2022-09-21T18:40:36Z Today, immersive technologies—like virtual reality—are celebrated as natural empathy machines, capable of fostering meaningful cross-cultural understanding. I interrogate this assumption through my case study of an early twentieth-century immersive, interactive ride: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1903). The elaborate travel simulation and multisensorial, live-action scenes that followed offered millions of visitors a thrilling glimpse of the electrified future promised by American imperialism. Through 20,000 Leagues, audiences climbed aboard a simulated submarine and traveled to the Arctic (a massive refrigerated warehouse on Coney Island at the height of summer, featuring live polar bears and “authentic” Native Alaskans). Though perhaps experienced simply as entertainment, the ride was a potent pedagogical tool; the amusement introduced visitors to the thrill of “discovery” first-hand while erasing the violence of colonialism. The impact of this ride, and others like it, was profound, contributing to mass support for imperial wars abroad and racial segregation at home. Drawing lessons from my case study, I argue that the early ride was a precursor to twenty-first-century immersive worlds. My work centers on the pressing need to reconnect immersive technology to its historical context or risk reinscribing the imperial gaze into contemporary experiences. To move toward this goal, I offer fellow makers and scholars terminology to articulate the manifestations of the medium’s colonial inheritance, critical questions to guide a more equitable cultural production process, and a contemporary case study of VR film, Traveling While Black (2019), directed by Roger Ross Williams, who is already engaged in this critical work. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Ryerson University Open Journals Arctic Interactive Film and Media Journal 2 1 149 158 |
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Ryerson University Open Journals |
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ftunivryersojs |
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English |
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virtual reality Immersive technologies cultural production amusement parks colonial legacies interactivity antiracist allyship design justice vr documentary vr for good cultural storytelling media theory immersive environments Coney Island speculative design |
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virtual reality Immersive technologies cultural production amusement parks colonial legacies interactivity antiracist allyship design justice vr documentary vr for good cultural storytelling media theory immersive environments Coney Island speculative design Gedal, Anna How to Make Immersive Technologies More Equitable: Confronting the Medium’s Colonial Legacies and Reimagining the Creative Process |
topic_facet |
virtual reality Immersive technologies cultural production amusement parks colonial legacies interactivity antiracist allyship design justice vr documentary vr for good cultural storytelling media theory immersive environments Coney Island speculative design |
description |
Today, immersive technologies—like virtual reality—are celebrated as natural empathy machines, capable of fostering meaningful cross-cultural understanding. I interrogate this assumption through my case study of an early twentieth-century immersive, interactive ride: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1903). The elaborate travel simulation and multisensorial, live-action scenes that followed offered millions of visitors a thrilling glimpse of the electrified future promised by American imperialism. Through 20,000 Leagues, audiences climbed aboard a simulated submarine and traveled to the Arctic (a massive refrigerated warehouse on Coney Island at the height of summer, featuring live polar bears and “authentic” Native Alaskans). Though perhaps experienced simply as entertainment, the ride was a potent pedagogical tool; the amusement introduced visitors to the thrill of “discovery” first-hand while erasing the violence of colonialism. The impact of this ride, and others like it, was profound, contributing to mass support for imperial wars abroad and racial segregation at home. Drawing lessons from my case study, I argue that the early ride was a precursor to twenty-first-century immersive worlds. My work centers on the pressing need to reconnect immersive technology to its historical context or risk reinscribing the imperial gaze into contemporary experiences. To move toward this goal, I offer fellow makers and scholars terminology to articulate the manifestations of the medium’s colonial inheritance, critical questions to guide a more equitable cultural production process, and a contemporary case study of VR film, Traveling While Black (2019), directed by Roger Ross Williams, who is already engaged in this critical work. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Gedal, Anna |
author_facet |
Gedal, Anna |
author_sort |
Gedal, Anna |
title |
How to Make Immersive Technologies More Equitable: Confronting the Medium’s Colonial Legacies and Reimagining the Creative Process |
title_short |
How to Make Immersive Technologies More Equitable: Confronting the Medium’s Colonial Legacies and Reimagining the Creative Process |
title_full |
How to Make Immersive Technologies More Equitable: Confronting the Medium’s Colonial Legacies and Reimagining the Creative Process |
title_fullStr |
How to Make Immersive Technologies More Equitable: Confronting the Medium’s Colonial Legacies and Reimagining the Creative Process |
title_full_unstemmed |
How to Make Immersive Technologies More Equitable: Confronting the Medium’s Colonial Legacies and Reimagining the Creative Process |
title_sort |
how to make immersive technologies more equitable: confronting the medium’s colonial legacies and reimagining the creative process |
publisher |
Interactive Film & Media Research Network |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://journals.library.ryerson.ca/index.php/InteractiveFilmMedia/article/view/1534 https://doi.org/10.32920/ifmj.v2i1.1534 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic |
genre_facet |
Arctic |
op_source |
Interactive Film & Media Journal; Vol. 2 No. 1 (2022): New Narratives, Racialization, and Global Crises; 149-158 2564-4173 |
op_relation |
https://journals.library.ryerson.ca/index.php/InteractiveFilmMedia/article/view/1534/1459 https://journals.library.ryerson.ca/index.php/InteractiveFilmMedia/article/view/1534 doi:10.32920/ifmj.v2i1.1534 |
op_rights |
Copyright (c) 2022 Anna Gedal https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY-NC-ND |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.32920/ifmj.v2i1.1534 |
container_title |
Interactive Film and Media Journal |
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2 |
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1 |
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149 |
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158 |
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