The gardens of the US president are not the first place one might imagine putting one’s work on display. But, this week, the Guardian showed its first virtual reality project at South by South Lawn, a festival of “art, ideas and action” convened by the White House to demonstrate how cutting-edge technology could be used as a tool for social change.
Some of you may have seen 6x9: a virtual experience of solitary confinement, which we launched on theguardian.com in April. For those of you unfamiliar with the project, you can watch it on your smartphone by downloading an app, and using a pair of goggles such as the affordable Google Cardboard or a Gear VR. Once 6x9 begins, you are transported into a room that measures six foot by nine foot – the average size of so-called “supermax” isolation cells in the US.
There are between 80,000 and 100,000 people in solitary confinement in the US, and the piece gives a glimpse from the inside: the claustrophobia; the inhumane conditions where you live next to your toilet while your food arrives on a tray through a slot twice a day; the psychological disturbances that can result from sensory deprivation. In 6x9, you get a very real sense of the disturbances experienced by the formerly incarcerated prisoners who feature in the piece. You hallucinate, float to the ceiling, your vision begins to blur.
Before its White House appearance, 6x9 travelled from the Sundance festival in Utah to the Tribeca festival (where it was watched by, among others, Robert de Niro) in New York. But South by South Lawn was particularly important because of the event’s aims. With 6x9, we wanted to allow our audience to feel what it is like to be in solitary confinement, but we also wanted to effect change.
When Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to President Obama, watched the piece, she called it “profoundly disturbing” and said 6x9 was an example of what Obama and his White House team had been hoping to achieve.
“We are seeking to encourage technology that leads to informed change,” she said. “Technology is a powerful tool that can be used as a force for good.” The idea that our pieces can have such impact is what is exciting for me as a journalist.
6x9 was an experiment in what virtual reality could mean for the Guardian, and we considered it a success. It showed just how powerful it can be to feel as though you are inside a story. Virtual reality can make you feel that you are in someone else’s shoes – a significant development for journalism, which tends to report from the third person. As a result, we have just launched a VR studio at the Guardian. As executive editor of VR, I’m leading a dedicated team. We’ll be producing regular content for you to watch online, on smartphones, and also on the new headsets that are becoming increasingly mainstream gadgets.
The practicalities of leading a VR studio are complex. Virtual reality as a form is not yet set in stone: the language and tools for making these pieces isn’t yet established. What VR journalism looks like right now varies hugely – the work of Nonny de la Peña, a pioneer in the form, tends to reconstruct real events, using original audio recordings and layering them with animations, for instance, while the New York Times takes a more documentary-like approach.
We have a clear idea what the Guardian VR’s output might look like. Before we embark on making a piece we examine the subject thoroughly: could we make this project as a traditional film? Why are you there? Who are you when you’re watching the VR piece? Can you do anything inside it?
The idea of place is obviously of paramount importance in VR work, but just having an exotic location isn’t enough. We have to ask ourselves whether a feeling of physical presence is essential to the story. In the case of 6x9, it was obvious that form and story matched perfectly: it’s a piece all about place and your relationship to it.
But that didn’t mean that it was entirely straightforward to make. We made the piece in CGI (computer generated interface) – mostly used to make video games – which was a completely new experience for the Guardian. ‘Modelling’ the cell and working through the progression of the piece took time and relied on trial and error. We wanted to give a sense of time passing without people tearing off the headsets with boredom.
Then there are the unexpected challenges. One of these was how much viewers can absorb from these projects – it turned out that viewers retain far less factual information than we had expected. But, perhaps, that’s not the primary aim with 6x9. Maybe, it’s more about the experience … and that will stick with you longer.
I’ve worked at the Guardian for 10 years, mainly in the area of innovation and journalism, and this is the most exciting development I’ve seen. The potential for VR is huge. I’ve watched people come out of 6x9 in tears and say it has totally changed the way they think about confinement as a punitive tool. It’s been used by mitigation specialists, who work with defence lawyers in capital cases, and by campaigners. So, while the goggles might still be a bit clunky, I’m confident in virtual reality’s future – and I believe that, once you’ve seen a piece, you will be too.
Francesca Panetta is the Guardian’s executive editor for virtual reality