The COIL/VSAT (Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) / Virtual Storytelling Application and Toolkit (VSAT) project was carried out in the first half of 2023 under an agreement between the School of Communications and Arts at the University of São Paulo in Brazil and Oxford Brookes University (OBU) in the UK. The project included the participation of 11 undergraduate and postgraduate students from both universities, who created documentaries and narratives in VR and Fotosfera 360, in fiction and non-fiction.
The agreement brought together the School of English and Modern Languages, the School of History, Philosophy and Culture and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at OXFORD BROOKES UNIVERSITY (OBU), and, at the UNIVERSITY OF SAO PAULO (USP), the School of Communications and Arts, through LabArteMídia (Laboratory of Art, Media and Digital Technologies), the Department of Cinema, Radio and Television and the Postgraduate Program in Audiovisual Media and Processes. In Brazil, coordination was by Almir Almas and in the UK by Eric White, Athene Reiss and Andrew Philip.
At USP, the project included undergraduate students from the Audiovisual Course, the Department of Cinema, Radio and Television, a post-doctoral student from the CTR and researchers from the LabArteMídia research group, including a professor from UFRJ. At OBU, it took place through independent study modules, and included students from Anthropology, Criminology, English Literature, Geography and Art History. The aim of the agreement is academic cooperation in the areas of Cinema and Audiovisual, Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Realities and Immersive Environments, in order to promote the exchange of teachers/researchers, postgraduate students, undergraduate students (with mutual recognition of undergraduate studies) and members of the technical-administrative team from the respective institutions.
The project is a pedagogical tool that facilitates virtual mobility to develop global collaboration on employability, skills, understanding and friendship between universities and their teaching and student bodies.
Together, OBU and USP explored the potential of the VSAT platform in order to build different kinds of narratives over the course of three months. To this end, the teachers involved gave participants workshops on how to use the technology. Then, in the execution phase, the students worked collaboratively to develop ideas, build narrative structures and solve problems that arose when the technology was tested.
VSAT is an open-source platform that allows users to create an immersive and interactive ‘photosphere’ narrative experience in less than two hours. All you need to do is use 360-degree photographs and VR glasses. The application, available on the web, allows users with no previous experience of virtual reality or programming to combine images and texts in imaginative ways. In this way, they organically acquire design and creative writing skills.
According to its creators, “In a Higher Education learning context, we propose implementing this tool for the following purposes:
- Comparative projects that investigate connections between more than one location using critical-creative approaches
- Site-specific projects that explore a particular site in detail using critical-creative approaches
- Projects that combine and comment on digital technology and critical and/or creative processes
- Rapid prototyping workshops (e.g. using VSAT stories to plan or create a 360-degree storyboard, films, art projects or site-specific installations)
- Interactive fiction or other creative writing projects
- Digital production projects”
At the end of the agreement, a seminar was held in which those involved presented the results of their experiences to the academic communities of both universities.
List of Works Developed in VSAT
– Beyond social invisibility: a Paulista Avenue journey
Direct: Gabriel Almeida – LabArteMídia-ECA/USP
Paulista Avenue is one of the most famous tourist attractions in São Paulo, known for its diverse array of voices on Sundays. Behind the scenes, aporophobia persists, leading to social exclusion and invisibility.
– Violated rights – English / Portuguese
Directors: Eduardo Acquarone and Deisy Feitosa – LabArteMídia-ECA/USP
Journalistic narratives based on accounts from people who have experienced attacks on the right to exist and freedom. In the project, AI tools collaborate in the digital reconstruction of emblematic environments for victims.
PS.: There is also a transcript of the Portuguese voice over.
– A tale of antipodes
Direct: Ruan Bertuce – LabArteMídia-ECA/USP
A story composed of brief loving thoughts that reflects on the wish to be at another place using poetry attached to the correlation between distant locations.
– Going Down
Direct: Kaio Firmino – LabArteMídia-ECA/USP
A horror game that tests the attention of the player. If you make a mistake, you shall be punished. By using variations of places, sounds and luminance, this weird narrator guides you into stranger places.
– Into the Endless Night
Direct: Gustavo Lacerda – LabArteMídia-ECA/USP
Leaving your usual subway station after a long day of work, you’re faced with a familiar place, but it’s undeniably strange – there’s not a single soul in sight. Will you be able to find the exit from this seemingly alternate reality? Or will you be… found?
– Carnival after pandemic
Direct: Ines Maciel – LabArteMídia-ECA/USP
Due to COVID-19, the celebration of Brazil’s most popular party was cancelled. This immersive narrative is a way to register the return of popular parties and the resumption of the Creative Economy in Rio de Janeiro. A supporting document with further information and references supports this VSAT experience.
– Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies
Direct: Camilla Anderson – OBU
This VSAT experience illustrates an academic text with a unique immersive experience of the OCIS, as if one were exploring the Centre’s mix of Westernised and Islamic architecture and interior design in person.
– Behind the Bars: Social Class and the Treatment of Inmates at Oxford Castle
Direct: Alessandro Curetti – OBU
Follow one of two paths (or try them both) to see the different prison experiences of bourgeois and middle class inmates.
– Journey to Wellness 360°
Direct: Kaila Desai – OBU
Exploring the Temporary Sense of Place and the Essential Role of Unstructured Natural Spaces in Physical and Mental Wellbeing within the zoned environment of Abington Park.
– ‘Seven ages of man’ speech from Shakespeare’s As You Like It
Direct: Cayman Evans – OBU
A contemporary adaptation in an inter-active storytelling format, relatable to current society. Places 17th-century literature into the contemporary period and establishes its long-term relevance in order to study the effectiveness of translating text into images.
– How harmful is Oxford’s air pollution?
Direct: Eva Petermann – OBU
A visual representation of the air quality in Oxford’s city centre with a chance to see and understand how different factors affect air quality and their potential effect on public health.