TreeVR

Impression: The lifecycle of a tree, in first-person perspective, in the context of deforestation.

Event: An installation at various public festivals and gatherings such as the World Economic Forum, World Government Summit, Sundance Film Festival, TED, and Tribeca Film Festival.

Receiver: A range of stakeholders, from the wider public to decision makers in policy.

Sensory elements: Wind, vibrations on the user’s back, and smells are integrated into a multisensory VR experience. Users feel, through visuals, vibrations, and smells, as if they are a Kapok tree consistently and steadily growing from a seed to a tall tree, to later be cut down. This is achieved by dynamic lighting and shadows, and vibration patters, generated in real-time, as well as changes across three scents (Earth peat, foliage, living gun smoke).

Concepts: Temporal, spatial, and semantic congruence bind all sensory elements. As a seedling, the user emerges from underground into the middle of a forest, smells the foliage scent, and at the end when the tree burns and is cut down, smells a smoke smell—a reminder of the hardship society is facing in light of increased deforestation (semantic congruence). Alongside the scent, the haptic feeling on the user’s back intensifies as the tree falls (temporal synchrony). People are also visually represented in the virtual world, as their arms and hands become branches of the tree (spatial congruence).

Enabling technology: The experience is enabled through a VR headset, a haptic feedback device (Subpac – a backpack that creates vibrations on the back), a multi-scent delivery device (OWidgets (now Hynt) system), and ambient heating and fan units.