Sensory Virtual Reality

Image by Nan Palmero Creative Commons 2.0 licence

We are increasingly asked about virtual reality which spurred us to think seriously about how it relates to sensory experience and the potential for this emerging group of technologies. How can sensory design be used to improve the overall VR experience?

Reality itself is essentially virtual: it's what our brain tells us is real from the received sensory inputs. So it follows that true immersive VR needs to pay attention to all of the senses.

VR headsets from the likes of Oculus, Samsung and others have been getting a lot of attention.  The technology is progressing at a pace, but, with the exception of a few prototypes, they focus on our ability to SEE and HEAR the world around us. The bulky gear almost entirely covers the face, concentrating on these senses, obscuring and confusing others and even contributing to motion sickness. It’s worth considering whether this is the ‘reality’ you want your customers to associate with your brand.

Smell, taste, touch, temperature, balance, wind, perception of depth and many lesser known senses contribute to an engaging experience. And the technology for these seems a long way off.

At Vetyver, authenticity is important to us and when considering VR for a project, this is at the forefront of our thoughts.

The best examples of VR go beyond the video game extension style headset. They harness the power of technology to tell a story and are not led by it. Good VR draws on the qualities which are important for us in all our work be this storytelling, sound design, scent and the way that all of them combine. To give a couple of examples,  this installation from Nick Ryan is truly transportative in two senses of the word. And The Guardian have cleverly used a deceptively simple VR experience of a prison cell to accentuate artful sounds design and storytelling.

Is VR the right choice? You want to create moments of joy for your customers which are authentic, memorable and in tune with your brand values. In any situation, be this shop, exhibition or in bar experience, you want your customers completely emerged in your brand and your values. Is a headset experience doing this? There is a danger of you becoming a shop window for the hardware.

New VR technology is fun and we will certainly enjoy pushing it to to the limits of its potential. We are a long way away from a virtual world which comes anything close to the real one. For us, authenticity will always be the ultimate aim.

Sometimes, the thing which smells most like a lemon, is well, a lemon. Take a step back. How do you want your brand to FEEL?

To chat about Sensory Virtual Reality email us at feel@vetyver.co.uk

Photo by Matt Biddulph under creative commons 2.0

A sensory home: an introduction

Earlier this month Vetyver ran a series of workshops for IKEA as part of the The Dining Club, a pop-up event in Shoreditch. As part of their #makemorethanjustfood concept, we were asked to host a series of sensory eating workshops.

We normally help companies create unique and powerful sensory brand experiences and events, but this time our workshops were designed to explore how we engage with the senses at home. It was fascinating working with, tasting and exploring the senses with the participants and we had a great response so over the next few weeks, we are going to explore how to engage the senses at home with some ideas and tips.

It’s important to understand that we experience all the senses at once. The key to creating a successful sensory experience is understanding that the senses are interlinked. They work very closely together and they shouldn’t be considered in isolation. Think of it like a graphic equaliser - if all the ‘sensory volumes’ are up at the same time, you get overload. Consider eating: if the sound is loud, your perception of taste will be diminished. If the beat or tempo is fast you will probably eat faster, and more. So your sensory environment completely affects the way that you eat or drink.

To give an example,  have you ever enjoyed a glass of table wine in on holiday and taken it home only to discover it no longer tastes like divine nectar? We have, but why? Because the colour palette, soundscape, temperature, scent and beauty surrounding you entirely change your perception of taste.

So no matter whether you live in a tower block, house or boat; in the city or the wilderness, with strangers, animals, friends or your family, join us in exploring how to make your home your sensory sanctuary.

Over the next few weeks we will be showcasing some of what you can do to bring the joy of taste, smell, touch, sound and sight to your home. Keep and eye on twitter for updates.

See Also

Sensory Eating for IKEA

How does your brand Feel?

ROUNDHOUSE: Synes

Vetyver collaborated with Nick Ryan, The London Contemprary Orchestra and Quayola & Sinigaglia to create a truly multi-sensory performance for Imogen Heap's Reverb Festival at The Roudhouse.

Nick Ryan, musician and audio specialist, is well known for his work across the fields of film, animation, TV, interactive and is at the forefront of technology and sound design. Nick experiences ‘Sound-to-colour Synesthesia or ‘Chromesthesia’, where sounds involuntarily evoke an experience of colour in his imagination.

This has had a huge influence on his work as a composer and in his piece “Synes", where he worked with us and  visual artists Quayola & Sinigaglia to explore his synesthesia. The music was performed by the London Contemporary Orchestra and transformed into a multi-sensory experience with live visuals and environmental scents.

We were invited to consider how the sense of smell contributes to both the creative composition process and the final performance, working with Nick to explore this sensory stimulus and push the boundaries of what constitutes an multi-sensory experience. Through a series of consultations and workshops, scents were developed to inspire Nick and the musicians during the composition process and to be used as part of the live performance.

Scenting performance on a large scale has always been problematic and we designed custom-build technology to achieve something really effective that makes use of The Roundhouse’s unique space. It enabled the possibility of scoring the performance so different smells work at different points in the performance in sync with the music and visual scores.