VR ‘homelessness experience’ that zips you in a tent unveiled at million dollar event and asks, ‘Are you a good person?’

THIS week’s South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, featured a host of new tech, including an interactive movie experience about homelessness.

The short film is called The Tent, and it’s experienced via a tablet.

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Viewers spend the second half of the movie alone and zipped inside a real tent.

One of the most unusual aspects of this form of entertainment is that virtual and augmented reality is often associated with experiencing a life better or more enhanced than your own.

The Tent provides a different kind of experience that leaves you questioning your own morality.

Director of The Tent Rory Mitchell spoke to The U.S. Sun about why he thinks experiencing VR in this way is important.

“Experiencing the second part of the story within the tent has brought up a lot of really interesting reactions from the audience.

“I think that people have found even sitting on the floor for ten minutes in a tent is too much for them and it begins to occasion claustrophobia, cramping, and the uncomfortableness of being in the tent that gives them a physical sensation that immerses them in the story further,” he told us.

“At one point we were even thinking about getting people dressed up as cops to bring you out after.”

The Tent is a 21-minute mixed-reality cinematic experience that follows the story of a woman in Los Angeles who wakes to find a homeless person camping in her front yard.

It’s narrated like a fairy tale and asks the questions, “What does it take to live a life according to your deepest held values?” and “Why is it so complicated to be a good person?”

The experience starts outside the tent with viewers looking into a tablet and seeing what looks like the mirror from Snow White.

You’re told you are a good person and then fly into a virtual town and focus on one house in particular.

Viewers can move around while holding the tablet and watch the movie unfold from different angles.

One thing you never see is inside the virtual tent or the person inside it.

At first, the woman who owns the house wants to let the homeless person live in her yard and even makes them regular meals.

The second part of the experience is viewed from inside the tent and features the two main characters having several disputes.

By the end, the protagonist questions whether she should call the police and remove this person from her property.

“I think VR, AR, XR, they really offer for us a new way of exploring the world and telling stories,” Mitchell told us.

“We can tell diversions. We can tell pleasant soap operas in this style and we can also tell, like all great art, stories that get at what it means to be human and how we might live together better.”

When asked what he hoped people would gain from the experience, Mitchell replied, “That it is simply a twist of fate as to whether you are the woman in the house or the woman in the tent and that we might look to ourselves and have a conversation around ethical activism and how we might best help each other.”

The director also revealed plans for the movie to be accessed via the App Store.

“The reason we built it for mobile is so we can distribute it through the App Store so that people can get a taste of spatial entertainment at home on their kitchen tables and it’s still going to be an incredible experience,” he told us.

This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk