Virtual Experience - Toilet Paper Mania
| Title | Details |
|---|---|
| Role | Unity Developer & 3D Artist |
| Tools | Blender, Unity, Spatial Audio Design, Experience Design |
| Length | 3 weeks |
| Project | A virtual experience that invites people to relive, rethink, and reflect their responses/ their change of behaviors towards the toilet paper mania during COVID-19. |
| Exhibitions | 2020 ITP Spring Show, 2020 Empire State Maker Faire |
Project Description
This project creates a virtual experience that invites people to relive, rethink, and reflect on their responses/ their change of behaviors towards the toilet paper mania during COVID-19. It is constructed as a museum experience with curated items such as footage, quotes, and sculptures about toilet paper. Viewers enter into a toilet paper roll and tour around the content as the water level rises up, which then eventually flushes away all information before they can fully process it.
This is to mimic how what we experienced forced us into a panic buying situation during the COVID-19. When there is a threat to our survival, panic and fear set in, impeding our rational decision-making. Through this interaction, I would love for people to reflect on the subtle changes in their mental states and behaviors during COVID-19.
Concept
What can we learn from our inner-self by reliving the panic/pandemic?
Play Toilet Paper Mania Now.
Research
As the covid-19 cases increase, people start to panic and seek for toilet paper as their minimum standards. Below are people’s responses towards toilet paper:
- Panic buying and hoarding
- Free giveaway of toilet papers for digital attention
- Interviews and comments from news and independent media outlets
- Crowdsourcing in making paper at home
- Digital content commenting on the toilet paper mania creatively
- eating toilet paper for dinner, toilet paper cake
Hashtags used on social media platforms are used in the VR museum:
- #toiletpaper
- #lifelesson
- #fullofshit
- #toilet
- #toiletpapermania
Curated Content
The footages are about panic buying, fighting over toilet paper, and using toilet paper as currency. The flowing hashtags such as “toiletpapermania”, ”toiletpaper”, “lifelesson”, and more are extracted from twitter.
The “I am in control” is the general tone of experts who tried to analyze and explain the panic buying situation of toilet paper.
They need to do something practical to make it feel like they are in control.
Dr. Cathrine Jansson-Boyd, a consumer psychologist at Anglia Ruskin University.
Toilet paper doesn’t really matter – it’s just so far down the survival list compared to other things like food or water – but it’s just something people cling to as a minimum standard.
Dr Rohan Miller from the University of Sydney.
Development
Sketch
Blender building 3D museum
Unity working on lighting, interactivity, and scripting
Refinement and Testing
- Lighting
- Interaction
- Fading
- WebGL version
- Adding water level to mimic the effect of drowning in information overload
Special thanks to Gabriel Barcia-Colombo .