Haptic Immersion:

Storytelling Through Mixed Reality

Grad.SXD Thesis

My thesis explores mixed reality beyond visual immersion, reimagining it as a multisensory experience.

By combining the performative elements of theater with the interactivity derived from video game mechanics, the resulting experience becomes one in which immersion occurs through engaging with the emotive power of haptics, which can be translated, transformed, filtered, and distorted.

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The project takes place in an unused historic theater in Los Angeles called the Arcade Theater (formerly Pantages Theater).

It makes use of the existing theater space to reappropriate it as a Mixed Reality experience.

The experience tells the story of Orpheus and Eurydice from Greek mythology. It is divided into three acts, with the first two acts taking place on the first floor and the third act occurring on the second floor.

Haptic Immersion: Thermal to vision

In The Eyes of The Snake

In this segment, the audience embodies a snake, enabling them to perceive the environment as a thermal field. They navigate towards the exit by following the warmth radiating from the portals. When they reach the end they hear the scream of a woman as they open the door for the next space.

Haptic Immersion: Taste to Visual

Chalice Room

As part of the experience, the audience drinks from a fountain that changes flavor to reflect the scene on stage, depicting the introduction and budding romance between the two lovers.

Orpheus Mind

The audience then enters an infinite room representing Orpheus's insecurities. The room is designed to evoke a sense of insignificance, featuring an ominous statue of a headless Orpheus. As they approach the statue, they hear voices emanating from inside his head. When they draw closer, the statue comes to life and requests their help in finding Eurydice.

Haptic Immersion: Touch to Sound

Streams of Sin

The audience must interact with the streams by touching them to find a token that grants them passage to the next part of the story. In this section, touch is converted into sound, and participants must navigate the space by listening to the sins of people trapped in the underworld until they locate their token within one of the streams.

They then proceed to meet Charon, who dissolves upon touch to grant passage.

Climb to Asphodel

The spiral staircase wraps around a tree, symbolizing a transition from darkness to hope. As the audience ascends, the environment undergoes a transformation, and the tree springs to life.

Asphodel Bar

The audience arrives at an enchanting bar adorned with lanterns and wind chimes, fostering a comforting ambiance as they eagerly await the conclusion. However, in an unexpected twist, they are met with punishment as the room plunges into darkness. The once-comforting space is transformed into an abstract environment, where light turns to sound and sound to light.

Haptic Immersion: Sound to Vision & Vision to Sound.

They must then make their way out by using their eyes to hear and ears to see.

Flashback

They then enter an old, abandoned room where they learn about the flashback and the reason for Eurydice's anger. This room serves as a symbolic representation of the past, offering a departure from the high-tech experiences they have encountered thus far.

Don't Look Back

They must then undergo a sensory deprivation experience, similar to what Orpheus endured, where they navigate through a room without looking back. Depending on whether they resist the temptation to look back or succumb to it, they will either experience the glitch that caused Orpheus to look back or not. They then proceed to meet either Hades or Eurydice.

Confronting Eurydice

Confronting Hades

Finale

The two groups of people are then reunited with Orpheus and Eurydice. In a callback to the first scene, their reunion is symbolically marked by a waterfall parting, reintroducing the two lovers.

Interactive Model

In order to showcase the emotionality of haptics, I have designed 3D-printed surfaces that embody the emotional beat of a specific scene within the experience. Interacting with these surfaces through touch triggers a change in the scene within the mixed reality model.

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