VR(Virtual Reality)의 공감 구현 요소 - 선댄스 영화제 상영작을 중심으로

Abstract

This study attempts to investigate visually empathic elements of VR storytelling. VR is an effective medium by which users feel empathy toward a subject or situation throughout sensual experience in virtual space. Despite its significance in recent studies on VR with emerging interest in Metaverse, definitions of the precise aspects of empathy from a designer’s perspective on creation are lacking. Therefore, this study focuses on how to utilize VR to create empathy. To do this, the researcher conducted a literature review and noted visually relationships between VR and empathy, with the classifications of empathy of ‘familiarity via mimicry’, ‘empathic distress’, ‘perspective taking’, ‘online simulation’, ‘affective empathy’, ‘compassion’, and ‘altruism’ based on a meta study by Betrand et al. (2018) on empathy, after which VR works were analyzed. There were approximately 120 VR films from the Sundance Film Festival, and 15 were re-selected as subjects based on reviews each year by the press and by VR and film experts. These works were then analyzed in terms of the classification of empathy. Through this process, this study found that each work positioned the participants’ roles, situations and authorities in the different aforementioned types of empathy. With this analysis, the study notes how a precise strategy of user experience can be conducted with the aim to make viewers feel empathy. Ultimately, this study can serve as a guideline for designers to consider when they create VR work.