De-Creation Myths
VR, 3D, UX, experiential, sound
Rhode Island School of Design
De-Creation Myths is a large-scale immersive VR experience that addresses creation myths, the stories we tell about who we are and where we come from. This project takes the visitor on a journey from landscape to landscape, starting zoomed out and gradually honing-in—from pre-creation, to cosmos, to the natural world, to the human world, and finally to the singular person.
Through shifts in perception and sensory embodied experience, the visitor’s relationship to the environment around them is challenged; new modes of interaction arise organically from the inadequacy of the old. These environments are entirely navigable by the visitor and responsive to their presence. While the narrative sequence of the environments is linear, the visitor decides how to conduct themselves, how long to spend within each environment, and whether to progress forward at all. And while certain actions are rewarded by progression to the next chapter, the ultimate focus is on the atmospheric resonance of simply being present in these digital spiritual spaces.
Over a three-month period, I designed and constructed all environments and assets from scratch, using Unity and Blender. The experience features sound prominently; I composed the musical theme, while the ambient soundscapes were collected from various sources, including NASA and National Geographic recordings.
The video below is a short film shot from within the VR experience. In this sense, it is both a narrative documentation of my journey through my own constructed landscape, and an invitation to others—a hopeful offering of an enchanted, concentrated view of life on earth.
(sound on, please)
I. Pre-creation
The experience opens with an amalgam of two symbols: the black box and our blue planet. The ageless mystery of life on earth—birth and death are absolute, but what happens inbetween is indeterminable. Physical reality can be seen as a constraint on the potential of the mind; yet at the same time, it is our only opportunity to realize this potential. Do we choose to enter the blue box?
Cathedral windows are a recurring motif in the experience. Cathedrals are environments that manipulate our perception—we are made to feel small in relation to the space, and simultaneously urged to imagine a higher point of view. Stained glass cathedral windows act as portals, membranes that transform all which passes through.
II-IV. Cosmos
Containing three sub-chapters—light, order and chaos—the second section offers us a zoomed-out, conceptual view of the universe. Akin to the Big Bang and the biblical creation myth, the visitor emerges from a flash of light.
How do we assign form to the ineffable? The human attempt to conquer the vastness of the universe by means of visual representation has manifested in various ways throughout history. Concentric circles, in particular, feature prominently in religious and mystical illustrations of the supposed sacred order of things.
The Cosmos section contains eleven concentric circles, while the experience contains eleven subenvironments in total; yet another cultural attempt to synthesize the hidden structure of life is the ascription of meaning to numbers. Judaism pays particular attention to these hidden meanings, although there isn’t always a consensus as to their exact nature. Some believe the number eleven signifies imperfection, disorganization of systems, disorder, and chaos.
A blue star appears, only to seemingly disappear as the visitor approaches it. But does it, really? All the stars appear farther now...
V-VII. Nature
The visitor finds themselves no longer embedded within the cosmic landscape; now, they are peering up at it from below. They are on the blue planet. The third section focuses on the natural world, the continuous change of Planet Earth and our continuous search on it—from water to land, from land to shelter.
As they step onto the island, the visitor finds themselves in a new environment altogether; their search for land had been exaggeratedly successful. They may roam aimlessly in the vast desert or follow the faint sounds of birdsong—like the floating stones, eerily out of place. The sounds will grow louder as they lead the visitor to the lone tree.
Gazing at a single tree one moment and lost in a densely packed, misty forest the next, the visitor looks for anything noteworthy in the disorientingly monotone landscape. A glowing portal in the shape of the recurring cathedral window is embedded in the rough, organic surface of a large rock, hinting at the visitor’s approach toward the next section—humanity.
VIII-X. Humanity
The third section centers on humanity, and once again follows a structure of zooming inward—from a towering architectural structure, to a more intimate environment of home, and subsequently to childhood.
The symbol of stairs, a seemingly mundane architectural element, highlights the creative drive to expand the boundaries of human life, allowing humans to venture, quite literally, into formerly inaccessible planes of existence.
The urge to go upwards is often portrayed negatively in religion and mythology, signifying human arrogance and frequently ending in disaster, as in the stories of Icarus or the Tower of Babel.
Yet here, the visitor climbs ever higher only to take a leap of faith— jump. Falling through without hitting the ground, they find themselves progressing to the next environment, delving deeper and deeper into the cellar of human consciousness.
The childhood chapter assumes the form of a shadow puppet theater. The human silhouettes featured here are taken from the Pioneer Plaque, a gold-anodized plaque which was attached to the Pioneer 10 spacecraft in 1972, in case the craft is ever intercepted by intelligent extraterrestrial life. It is a visual representation, in the most direct sense, of the fairy tales we tell about ourselves, to ourselves... to anyone who might be listening.
XI. Person
Finally, we pass through a dark corridor filled with blinking eyes to reach the last chapter—person.
What on first glance may appear to be an island in the distance, soon reveals to be a human face. The sound of heartbeat increases as we draw near.
The visitor may spend as long as they want in this final environment. The experience ends once they take off the headset and return to real life.