VR and Empathy - Gwen W.

 This week I really enjoyed diving deeper into virtual reality and how it can warp our perceptions of empathy and make us feel so many emotions. Chris Milk's Ted Talk was extremely eye opening. I loved hearing about his experiences with VR filmmaking, and his project about the young Syrian refugee. Using this technology to show others what it's like in other countries, with different lifestyles, is an amazing concept. "It connects humans to humans," Milk says. VR becoming a catalyst for human empathy creates a world where we can put ourselves into one another's shoes and feel a true understanding of the experiences they're going through, and as Milk says, it will bring us closer together. I love the idea of creating these films about people from all over the world and making them readily available for others in all countries to view. Today's world is so far from peace, but having a new way to try and empathize and understand others who live differently than us will create a new sense of community than the world may have never come close to feeling. On other other hand, Queerskins really kind of freaked me out. I liked the concept, but the graphics were a little unnerving. I felt like my skin was crawling while I was watching clips of it. There were times when it was peaceful, but sometimes when the main character would read out of his diary and let his thoughts wander, it gave me chills! I'm not sure if I would play/watch Queerskins completely, but it was interesting to watch clips of it and to understand the idea of the storyline.