How do you convey the impact of hearing loss for a child? For The Shepherd Centre, generating this understanding was essential to engaging supporters. We knew VR done wrong can be a gimmick, but we were confident it would be the best tool for placing a viewer in somebody else's shoes.
Sourcing the latest technology from Japan, our new cameras allowed the children to get very close to the lenses. This enabled us to craft a VR experience that gave viewers insight into what it's like to go through primary school with hearing impairment. Working with engineers at Cochlear, our team of sound designers recreated an accurate reproduction of what it would sound like to be that child in the playground and in the classroom.
By immersing people in the potential isolation a child can feel, the experience delivered a powerful range of emotions and reactions. This experience very much delivers on the empathy machine hype. The experience is now seeded out using various Oculus Gos around Australia helping educate parents, donors and politicians of the need for organisations like The Shepherd Centre.
We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land upon which we create, the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.
Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.