The Future Of Virtual Reality - Dr Sarah Jones - #110

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello there, humans. Hope you are well. My guest today is Dr. Sarah Jones, and she has recently received the world's first PhD in immersive storytelling. It's a very complex title, but essentially she's playing around with virtual reality, augmented reality, holographics and a whole bunch of other different platforms that people can use to tell stories. So today we get to learn all about what the future of VR and AR and holographics has in store for us. Some of the most exciting projects that are going on right now. Some cool suggestions for where you can go to actually experience some of these things. And some ethical implications as well to do with how effectively these new platforms can change people's opinions and influence what they think. Obviously, everyone's quite concerned at the moment about what social media is doing to us. Make that into a 3D world that essentially replicates reality. And you can already see why there might be some concerns about where we're going. Please welcome Dr. Sarah Jones.
I am joined by Dr. Sarah Jones. And before the podcast, we've been nerding out on all of the different gadgets and stuff that we've got floating around our house. So that is going to be the continuation of today's episode. Sarah, welcome to the show.

**Sarah Jones** (1:38)
Thank you very much for having me.

**Chris Williamson** (1:40)
It's a pleasure to have you on. You have the world's first PhD in immersive storytelling.

**Sarah Jones** (1:48)
Correct.

**Chris Williamson** (1:50)
What's that? What does that mean?

**Sarah Jones** (1:54)
I'm sure I won't be the only one for very long. I'm sure there'll be lots more coming up right behind me with regard to immersive storytelling. And I usually say it's immersive story living as a way to kind of define it a little bit more. But basically, what I do is grab any tech that I can and break it to find a new way of having a story. So story living is all around that kind of immersive experience where it's completely rooted in the experience, in the experiential. So therefore, you can't really have a told story. It's not really a directed narrative. So you've got to break it apart and then you live it in whatever way you want. Therefore, it's story living. So yeah, I did my PhD. I got my PhD in story living. The first one. But yeah, it's pretty good.

**Chris Williamson** (2:56)
That's fun. So what are some of the examples of the kind of technologies that you work with?

**Sarah Jones** (3:03)
I've always experimented with whatever I can get my hands on, really. So my background was in television journalism. So I was a reporter for 10 years, traveled all the way around the world telling stories. And I always wanted to just get closer to those stories. I wanted to find a way of really taking the audience and putting them in the heart of it. So I was right at the start of the mobile phone movement, of mobile phone filmmaking, and shooting and editing everything on your phones. And I found that that could get you closer, but it still wasn't close enough. Because whenever you're watching anything, there's this barrier, and that barrier is the screen, and it's always in the way. And then when I did my first VR experience, I was like, this is it. Now I can take you, the audience, and I can plug you in the center of the story, and you're there, and you experience it then yourself. So from all kinds of things, from normal film to AR to VR to 360 film, which is obviously the easiest way to experiment. But at the moment, I'm really fascinated with holograms and what you can do with those. And I haven't made anything decent, but I will. So it's just a case of experimenting and breaking and trying to find how these technologies suit different mediums.

**Chris Williamson** (4:31)
That's interesting. So are you coming at this from a tech coding site? Or are you coming at this from more of a grand perspective? What can it do? What's its capabilities side?

**Sarah Jones** (4:46)
I think the latter and certainly more of that kind of artistic side.
I tried to learn how to code probably about five, six years ago. I thought, okay, I really need to do this. Clearly, I'm missing that skill. I started learning and then I thought, you know what? There's people that are brilliant at this. I don't need to kill myself trying to do it. I just need to find those people and work with them.

**Chris Williamson** (5:17)
Especially if it's not in your wheelhouse. No.