The Visit is an immersive interactive real-time video installation, developed from a ground-breaking research project conducted by artists and psychologists working with women living with dementia. The Visit explores their experiences of the way in which people perceive and interact with those with a diagnosis.
Visitors are invited to sit with Viv, a life-sized, photorealistic animated character, capable of directly engaging with a viewer. We meet Viv as she talks about her life, her health and her concerns. She is ‘aware of’ and responds to the viewers presence in her home. Her dialogue is created largely from verbatim interviews, drawing us into a world of perceptual uncertainty, while at the same time confounding stereotypes and confronting fears about dementia. Like the women who co-created her, Viv experiences various dementia-related symptoms, including hallucinations and confabulation. She is also insightful and reflective. Viv is living a life and coming to terms with a neurological change. The piece invites quiet attentiveness rather than the kind of interaction characteristic of gaming. Sit with and listen to Viv without judgement, irritation, pity or despair, finding a way into her world.
The Visit is produced as part of the ARC Laureate awarded to Professor Jill Bennett – Simulating subjective experience: A new paradigm in immersive visualisation.
Produced for The Big Anxiety: festival of people + arts + science.
Please get in touch if you want to learn more or experience The Visit on your own headset (Oculus/Meta Quest).
Supported by the Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship awarded to Prof Jill Bennett. FL170100131
A project flyer can be downloaded as PDF here.
Awarded the Originality and Impact Award. 25th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology (VRST), 2019.
Papadopoulos C; Kenning G; Bennett J; Kuchelmeister V; Ginnivan N; Neidorf M, 2021, ‘A visit with Viv: Empathising with a digital human character embodying the lived experiences of dementia’, Dementia: The International Journal of Social Research and Practice, vol. 20(7), pp. 2462-2477, https://doi.org/10.1177/1471301221998888
Director and Producer: Jill Bennett
Art Director and Production Design: Volker Kuchelmeister
Voice actress: Heather Mitchell
Motion Capture actress: Emma Kew
Script: Jill Bennett, Natasha Ginnivan
Script consultants: Melissa Neidorf, Gail Kenning, David Pledger
Interviewees/contributors: Prue Uther, Joan Eva, Jennifer Bute, Wendy Mitchell
Researchers: Natasha Ginnivan, Chris Papadopoulos, Melissa Neidorf, Gail Kenning.
Motion Capture: Joe Holloway
Voice recording: Tobias Gilbert
3D Artist: Chris Norris, Jason Dobra
3D scanning: Matt Cabanag (UNSW LITEroom)
LIDAR: Bruce Harvey (UNSW Engineering)
Music: String quartet no. 16 : for string quartet with optional didjeridu (2005), by Peter Sculthorpe, performed by Del Sol Quartet and Courtesy of Sono Luminus. Music published by Faber Music Ltd and used by permission of Hal Leonard Australia.
Special thanks: Stephen Sewell, Luis Dominguez, Karen Kriss, Steve Weymouth, Eva Nolan, the A&D resource centre team, Ant Banister and the participants in the study.
Collaborators with lived experience are at the core of our work. Collaborators may chose to remain anonymous or to be credited using their real name or a pseudonym. In each case the decision rests with them (where appropriate in consultation with carers/family). We thank them all.
Exhibited:
ACM Siggraph Asia, VR Theatre. 04/12/2020 – 13/12/2020
UNSW Galleries, Sydney 27Sept-9Nov 2019
Art Gallery of New South Wales Sydney 16 Oct 2019
UNSW Library, Sydney 28-31Oct 2019
VRST 25th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology, Western Sydney University, Parramatta. 12/11/2019 – 15/11/2019.
Pop up exhibition., UNSW Library, Sydney. 28/10/2019 – 31/10/2019.
The Empathy Clinic, Big Anxiety Festival, UNSW Art and Design, Sydney. 27/09/2019 – 09/11/2019.
