I don't know what to do with my brand new holodeck.
Actually, let me back up. This summer I was able to participate in the construction of a new laboratory at Michigan State University, which is where I'm working on my Ph.D. in Communication. It's called the Center for Avatar Research and Immersive Social Media Applications (CARISMA) Lab, and it's amazing. It has full motion capture capability, including real-time facial replacement and retexturing. It has virtual and augmented reality, meaning that not only can we simulate an artificial environment which you can move freely through, you can also manifest and manipulate virtual objects in the room. Soon a portion of the Lab will have omnidirectional moving floors so that participants can move freely and infinitely through virtual environments. I'm dating myself, but think about the holodecks from Star Trek: The Next Generation, where flawless computer-generated environments could be created and used. CARISMA is about as close as we can get to those without having the actual U.S.S. Enterprise in the building. It's amazing, and we're only just beginning to explore its capabilities.
The thing is, I'm a pastor, so I always tend to think about things in terms of how they could be useful for spreading the Word to those who haven't heard it, or delivering it more effectively to those who have. And that's where I'm a little bit stumped. I have at my disposal this incredible piece of technology, and I am short on ideas for how I can employ it to spread the Gospel.
I don't know what to do with my brand new holodeck. I'd like your help with that.
This may represent a very special opportunity for Christians. We have traditionally had a very mixed relationship with new media. Christians did an excellent job taking advantage of radio, allowing the message of the Gospel to be spread farther and to more ears than ever before. My grandmother was brought to faith when the message of the Gospel was delivered to her through the radio, and three generations of Christians in her family have followed as a result. Film and television caused more difficulties. Christian messages were often watered down, replaced with moralism, or drastically altered when they were presented at all. The quality of Christian-produced film and television media has varied wildly, and they often failed to capture the drama that such powerful events ought to communicate. Frustratingly, Christians really never got into the swing of video games. We played them as much as anyone, but in terms of content it was never manifestly obvious how to effectively communicate the message of the Gospel through games. Virtual reality (VR) might be an opportunity to rectify these shortcomings.
Presented here are some perspectives on VR as a medium for content delivery which may help guide thoughts that you can expand upon. In essence, the primary hope is to prompt discussion, both here in this GOWM forum and outside of it in our own circles, as to how the Gospel can be communicated through VR. The secondary hope is to inspire some of you to pursue the actual creation of content for this form of media.
This secondary hope is going to be particularly relevant for students. I can guarantee to you that there are careers to be built in this area. When I first stepped into the virtual reality simulator in CARISMA, I was blown away. It was not like watching a movie. It was not like playing a video game. It was something different altogether, and it was amazing. As the technology improves, these devices, already affordable at a consumer level (albeit pricey), will become less expensive and systems capable of running them will become more commonplace. I am comfortable practically promising you that this is the future of entertainment. However, there is very little content for it right now, and know-how in VR production is rare. If you choose to pursue VR content creation as an interest, you have an excellent chance at breaking into a burgeoning entertainment industry. If your current interests are centered on film or video games, I recommend that you at least attach VR as a parallel interest. It could prove lucrative for you, but even more importantly, it might prove very important to the work of the Church.
VR, as a medium, might lend itself to communicating powerful Christian messages more readily than radio, television, film or video games. During my first experience in the CARISMA lab a human-sized robot came lurching toward me, gears grinding noisily and sparks flying from its appendages. I knew that this was a digital construct which had no capacity to hurt me, but that rational voice in my head was a whisper against every physical impulse. I don't jump at horror movies. I comfortably play unsettling video games. But when that robot came tumbling out of the room at me, I staggered backward. When it looked up at me, I said, out loud, "It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. . ." Virtual reality provides a highly immersive experience, delivered in a very intense packet. This may provide opportunities which have long eluded Christians in media.
VR's primary power is that it is highly experiential. It does not seem to require the same elements that other narrative media require. Video games need objectives. Movies need a discernable story. VR only requires an environment. One of the most meaningful experiences of my life was a trip to Israel. I got to see what Jesus saw when He delivered sermon illustrations. It dramatically enhanced the Bible for me. VR affords the potential to put someone in ancient Israel, let them see and move about the Mount of Olives, and there may be tremendous value in this, even apart from any other content. However, VR allows for certain experiences to open up as well. Imagine experiencing being on the boat when Jesus calms the storm. Imagine being in the garden near a sleeping Peter, James and John while Jesus prays quietly nearby when the sounds of an approaching troop draws nearer, their torches gradually coming into view. Imagine drifting over a dark mass and suddenly hearing, "Let there be light." For believers these could be incredibly moving and instructive experiences. For unbelievers these could spark the kind of interest that prompts questions. Christians can leverage the visceral reactions that VR inspires to infuse a depth of meaning and understanding that traditional media has had difficulty communicating.
The highly intuitive nature of VR also may lend itself to a special presentation of Christianity. Films and radio programs with Christian messages are typically very weighty and verbose. This may be well and good for the Christians in the audience, who are prepared to dedicate the cognitive resources required to get the presented message, but the utility for those who do not have that level of motivation is probably very limited. VR programs, thus far, have tended to be short, singular experiences. A person who would have laughed at the idea of watching a movie about the Garden of Eden may very well be willing to stand by the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil while the snake whispers the message that dooms mankind. Individuals who would never have had the patience to sit through a viewing of The Passion may very well be willing to stand on Golgotha and watch as Jesus proclaims their absolution. There is a tendency to criticize the short attention spans that TV, games and Internet have fostered, but consider how Jesus tended to communicate. He often chose short, vivid illustrations or brief, immersive stories, and seldom opted for lengthy, weighty soliloquys. I would suggest that VR provides a forum which more closely resembles how Jesus spoke and taught than radio, film, TV, or video games do.
I don't know what to do with my new holodeck, but I know that I want to see it used for God's Kingdom. VR is still the Wild West. There are no clean roads or accepted paths as yet. My hope is that together we can begin to see what this new media landscape has to offer and produce quality messages for it, so that visitors to this new digital land will find steeples there.
[ Listen to a 13-minute interview with Brian Klebig about his presentation, conducted by Andy Bates on KFUO-AM radio on his "Faith 'n' Family" program, September 28, 2016. Audio courtesy of Worldwide KFUO. ]
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Discussion
Additionally, because the feedback is so fast, you can have two people in VR headsets passing a real basketball back and forth between each other, and only seeing it through VR they would still be able to catch it. So the interactions with virtual objects that we can produce are pretty true-to-life, even if it is rather obviously not reality.
So yes, there's definitely a participatory element that ought to be employed in making messages. I think that even more than touring Luther's Wittenburg, I think it'd be entertaining to help him nail the theses to the door, or somesuch. That's the experiential nature of the media that particularly excites me.
That all said, being epic causes the forgiveness of a multitude of sins. The charge on Helm's Deep in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers was not at all how I imagined it having read the book. All was forgiven, though, because the way the creators imagined it was also fantastic. My hope would be that Jonah's experience would be relayed with the treatment it deserves, and people will be similarly quick to forgive. Perhaps that's what it all comes back to: Christians, maybe more than any others, have to pursue quality in their work.
As with all technology, costs are high at first, then drop. Brian, are you permitted to reveal how much Michigan State is investing in your VR installation?
The overall budget for all renovations was 10 million dollars, but this covers an absolutely massive, multi-floor, inter-departmental overhaul of the building itself. A basic VR setup which could perform essentially the same VR functions currently available in the laboratory could be done (with no pre-existing equipment, not even computers) for around $2500. That would allow you to move around a room by actually walking (with your movement tracked by dual laser cameras), have a forced-feedback controller for each hand to allow you to fully interact with the environment, and of course give you the goggles and a computer capable of running the system.
The nerve-center of the CARISMA Lab's research, where we are putting together integrated VR, augmented reality, and motion capture, will probably run about $350,000 once the last check is signed, with about $600 per year equipment replacement costs (I'm not including the cost of staff, of course). Definitely expensive, but probably not impossible for our institutions, either.
A question that arose while reading this article was, should this use of virtual reality be available to us? Does God truly want us to use our advancements to dig so much into His Word or are we using it in the right way to help us benefit and learn more about what has taken place in the past? We don't want to try and infer too much so then we end up questioning our faith. With all of these interpretations taking place we have the difficulties that may arise with trying to explain questions being asked that God personally does not ask in His own work. We don't want to spread any message that isn't truth but do have to use some background to show our belief we have in God.
Now, all that being said, I definitely think that any representation of Scripture, be it through music, theater, film, game, or virtual reality, ought to be conducted with the care and attention that its subject matter deserves. One nice thing about VR is that, with current production standards, it will be very unforgiving of errors. You might be able to get away with having the wise men on your nativity set, but they'd better not come walking through the entry of the stable in a VR simulation or everyone will immediately cry foul. The realism of VR creates a need for accuracy in its experiences, so I think the medium itself gives a better opportunity than usual for faithful retellings and recreations of Biblical events.
Does that more or less address your question?
We like the idea of VR, but it seems almost to good to be true! What could be the main arguments of people who are against using it in the church? We had a difficult time imagining downsides, and wondered what possible dangers or disadvantages you had considered in your work.
One other potential objection that I've not heard, but could envision, is the potential to not give much care to the images we produce. We spend a lot of time hammering out terminology so that it's specific and understandable, I think a good deal of consideration should be given to our visual messages as well. I think that will also help address the quality problem. The quality of our visual messages should match the importance of the content.
I think a great direction to approach VR as a tool for evangelism in an ever growing secular society would be to integrate VR with concrete biblical history. I think one would need to be very prayerful prior to undertaking the task of re-creating any particular biblical stories. A far broader spectrum with a historical foundation could provide more benefit with a wider reach in audience. Such examples could include...
- Recreation of the original old testament temple, or second temple based on archaeological evidence. You could actually walk around and explore for yourself.
- Recreation of the old testament arc of the covenant, Holy of Holies, etc.
- Ancient city of Jerusalem at the time of Christ. Imagine walking around as an observer watching actual people, speaking, conducting business, worshiping, etc.
- Virtual rendering of all Christian artwork in a virtual museum done to scale. Perhaps visit the museum and see different art from different time periods and pick up actual copies of original extant documents.
- Tour of modern day biblical historical sites without having the expense of traveling.
- Virtual meditation with praise and worship songs integrated with artwork.
- An interactive map campaign where a user to watch and interact as time elapses and territorial boundaries change and empires rise and fall. This would certainly help with context when studying scripture. Imagine the ability to zoom in by moving your hands to see further details of individual cities and larger biblical events with a chronological context.
I believe all of the above are would appeal to larger audiences, could be used from a university/academic setting, all the way down to a youth group or private biblical study usage. With a larger audience including academia I think more funding and better research would be available with a marketing push with much farther reach over the long haul.
People needed for VR experiences:
Producer
Script writer/Storyboarder
Programmers with knowledge of C# and C++ (maybe Java if someone is a beginner looking to get into this, but always with the objective of learning C# and C++), as well as training in Unity, Unreal Engine, Vizard, and Python (doesn't need to all be the same programmer, I would anticipate a small team).
Programmers with MotionBuilder and Maya experience to create the human animations
Digital design artists who can also work in these programming languages to design and finesse skins.
Camera operator who can capture the required real-world images.
A mathematician who can assist with the physics mathematics wouldn't hurt, depending on the experience being programmed.
Audio engineer
That's what jumps to mind, though I'm certain I'm not considering some elements. In discussing the production end with some people I've heard the same thing over and over: basically the best way to do it is to go horns down, anticipate lots of mistakes, and fill in gaps as you go. I know that doesn't sound like a recipe for a high-quality product, but I think it's a necessary ingredient to get things going.
I think the idea of using artwork with virtual bible meditation of scripture is a very fascinating idea. I would love for the artwork to help me really connect God's message with an emotion and feeling. I think it would be interesting to use artwork to help us "feel" more connected to the Word. I also know many individuals with mental disabilities that may not be able to handle an entire church service. I think VR would be a good tool to use to help reach those who may not be able to understand the more complex and lengthy church sermons.
Could be very cool to use that for a Christian experience.
But, shorter answer: I'm afraid I don't know enough about phones for VR to be able to point you in a reliable direction for links that aren't dead, EXCEPT to type "VR" into Google Play or the App Store. That'll give you quite a gigantic number of listings.
You've piqued my interest though. I'm going to investigate this topic a little more thoroughly. I have used a phone-based VR in the past, I wonder what it would take to make & program an app for that. Definitely worth taking a look at.
However the quality difference between this and an actual VR system (like the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift) is gargantuan. Even for simple experiences which would only involve viewing and very little interaction the difference is dramatic. A 3D movie that takes place around you is pretty cool, but it's not VR where you stick your hand out and forget that an object isn't actually there. Additionally, I do think that interactivity plays a pretty key role in VR experiences, especially in involving the viewer/player/actor in the action.
That said I think there's a lot of application for experiences all along the quality continuum. Unfortunately the production means differ somewhat, but I'll need to do some research before I know whether there are ways to adapt them so you don't need to survey Jerusalem twice, for example.