‘Colored: The Unsung Life of Claudette Colvin’
A Case Study on Empathy within Immersion
“Empathy in the broadest sense refers to the reactions of one individual to the observed experience of another.” (Davis 1983, p. 113)
Introduction
This essay reflects critically on the immersive experience Colored: The Unsung Life of Claudette Colvin with emphasis on the empathetic impact of the experience on myself. For this critical reflection, I have adopted Davis's definition of empathy, referenced above. In section 1, we will review my experience of Colored and the events that took place during the installation. In section 2, we review three immersive non-fiction works to gain a sense of perspective within the field. In section 3, we discuss the effectiveness of Colored, reading into the level of immersion experienced and its impact on empathy. In section 4, we will conclude with notes on immersion and empathy. Since we have already defined empathy, it is important to clarify the term ‘immersion’, as it can have different meanings in various contexts. Throughout this work I will refer to ‘immersion’ where I have adopted Witmer and Singer’s definition:
“Immersion is a psychological state characterized by perceiving oneself to be enveloped by, included in, and interacting with an environment that provides a continuous stream of stimuli and experiences.” (Witmer and Singer 1998, pp. 225-240)
Colored: my experience
I experienced Colored: The Unsung Life of Claudette Colvin, the multi-award-winning mixed reality experience at Wales Millennium Centre’s immersive space BOCS. Adapted from a biographical essay by Tania de Montaigne, the experience is suggested to “transport audiences to Montgomery Alabama in 1955” (Cummings, 2024). On entering the BOCS, a small dark room with walls made of felt, I am presented with a row of benches, and a selection of HoloLens 2 MR headsets. I received a disclaimer from the steward that some participants find this experience distressing and a reminder I am free to leave whenever I like. Over the next 50 minutes I experience an immersive journey depicting key moments in the life of Claudette Colvin during her fight for civil rights.
Throughout the work we reflect on the story of Claudette’s life, being encouraged to experience the events as if we were there. The experience is shown through animated characters re-enacting pivotal moments from her life, digitally assembled scenes to create a deeper sense of immersion, wall projections combined with narration to further the viewers understanding, and interactive floating particles used to direct the participants point of focus in the space.
The events of her life that we experience are as follows: a 15 year old Claudette refusing to give up her bus seat for a white woman, the aggressive removal of her from the bus by police officers, somber moments depicting her time spent in prison, and the court hearing that refuted her claim the city was at fault. We then witness the rest of her life in short snippets next to the late Rosa Parks’ for comparison, being reminded by the narrator how different this story could have been.
Immersive non-fiction
As Colored is still a new immersive work, little has been written or shared about participants' own experiences of the installation. Colored has only been accessible to the public for two weeks as of when I am writing, so I cannot draw on others experiences of the work to further my analysis. Therefore, in this section, we will briefly review three works of immersive non-fiction that will inform my analysis of Colored and its impact on empathy and immersion.
Nonny de la Peña began working on the first immersive journalism piece in 2010. This was experienced by three participants which formed a part of a case study conducted by de la Peña (de la Peña 2010, pp. 291-301). The immersive news story was displayed through a Wide 5 HMD and used body tracking and computer graphics. Each participant was in a virtual reconstruction of Guantanamo Bay in the digital body of a prisoner about to be interrogated (Slater 2016, p. 33). All three users reported feelings of discomfort, with one saying, “I was reminded about the news that I heard about Guantanamo prisoners and how they feel and I really felt like I were a prisoner in Iraq or some… war place and I was being interrogated” (de la Peña 2010, p. 298). Referring to our definition of empathy, we can begin to understand how a user might feel a stronger sense of empathy when experiencing an immersive news story compared to traditional media. I have not personally experienced the immersive new story, but it is well documented, with a video demonstration and interviews with participants. Therefore, we have enough information to use this study as a framework for reflecting on Colored.
Peña describes immersive journalism as “the production of news in a form in which people can gain first-person experiences of the events or situation described in news stories” (de la Peña 2010, p.291). We can attribute the success of later immersive non-fiction works such as Clouds Over Sidra to this effect. Clouds Over Sidra is a 360-degree video designed to be viewed through a HMD depicting life at Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. We follow Sidra, a 12-year-old girl as she gets on with everyday life. Milik claims that through being in this environment with Sidra, sitting with her, existing in the space with her you generate a greater feeling of empathy (Milik, 2015).
In 2021 Sacha Wares Museum of Austerity described as a ‘radical new form of documentary’ won Best Immersive Production at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam. Using HoloLens displays the experience shows 3D scans of people who have suffered under austerity sharing stories from relatives and carers. “Museum of Austerity has found an innovative and powerful way to tell these terrible stories in a way that exposes the horror of what happened to so many disabled people during the austerity period” (John Pring, 2024). Colored and the Museum of Austerity share several similarities. For example, both use the same technology, feature actors playing digital characters, include 3D depictions of scenes, and narrate powerful true stories. These similarities may also allow us to view Colored as a ‘radical new form of documentary’ that belongs within the category of immersive non-fiction.
Immersion and empathy
In this section we will investigate the level of immersion I experienced analysing a series of moments and how they contributed to my sense of immersion, presence, and embodiment. We will reference the immersive works mentioned earlier and the Reality-Virtuality Continuum to evaluate the level of immersion experienced and its impact on empathy.
We will use Skarbez et al.’s revisit of the Milgram and Kishino Reality-Virtuality Continuum to place the piece critically amongst other immersive works. Within the Milgram and Kishino Reality-Virtuality Continuum on one end they place a completely real environment consisting of real objects. On the other end they situate a purely virtual environment, where a user is fully immersed in a virtual world. Anything between is labelled as Mixed Reality, shown in figure 1 (Milgram 1994, pp. 1-4). Within this continuum which only focuses on immersion in a visual sense it can be difficult to find the right place to situate Colored. Since we have seen a huge improvement in XR technologies over the last 30 years it only makes sense to refer to Skarbez et al.’s revised version, shown in figure 2 (Skarbez 2021, p.3). In this version Skarbez et al. acknowledge and draw on limitations from Milgram’s original continuum whilst presenting a new taxonomy of MR experiences (Skarbez 2021, p.4).
Putting on the HoloLens 2 headset for the first time I instantly noticed the limited field of view. I noticed gaps around the sides of the display and quickly began to manipulate my eyesight to see outside the virtual world, breaking my sense of immersion. However, after 5-10 minutes my mind begins to adjust, and I find myself in the virtual world. I begin to walk around the room and interweave between objects and people. The characters depicted are true to size and perform with lifelike movements. I find myself shying away, so I do not crowd any of the digital characters and even get out of my seat at one moment as a character began to sit on my lap. Around the 15-minute mark I could feel the tension build between Claudette and the white woman she refuses to give up her seat for. The tension got so much I found myself backing away from the situation due to feelings of discomfort. In another scene when the jail cell is spawned right in front of me, I jump back in a subconscious reaction to avoid walking into a wall. These elements are digitally rendered through the headset although they very effectively manipulate my sense of what is and what is not real. Later the entire room is digitally rendered as Claudette Colvin Drive and the MR experience resembles what you would expect from a VR experience. It is important to note that with new XR technology the line between MR and VR can be seen as blurred and just because HoloLens 2 is labeled as a MR headset does not mean it does not have VR capabilities.
Within XR, immersion is achieved by convincing the user that they are present in a virtual world. This can be accomplished through visual, auditory, and haptic feedback (Slater 2003, p. 4). I found myself reacting to characters as if they were in the room with me and flinching away from digital walls to avoid hurting myself. This demonstrates how my brain was tricked into believing the generated world was real. Therefore, I was highly immersed in this experience. If we compare it to Clouds Over Sidra, where you cannot move around, I did not feel like I was sharing the space with any characters, and no part of me believed to be in a Zaatari refugee camp. I was far more immersed in Colored than Clouds Over Sidra. The deeper level of immersion allowed me to feel closer to the situation and view Claudette's experience in a more meaningful and intimate light. This led to a higher level of empathy felt when experiencing Colored than Clouds Over Sidra.
We will now investigate the level of presence felt during the experience. Presence is broken down into two basic beliefs: place illusion and plausibility illusion (Slater 2009, pp. 3551-3554). Place illusion is the belief of being physically present within a virtual space. Plausibility illusion is the belief that what is happening to the user in the virtual world is really happening to them. It is also important to note that “presence is a human reaction to immersion” (Slater 2004, p.1). If we draw on the moments that created my immersion, we can see I believed to be present in that world. This successfully created a sense of the place illusion. Although there is limited interaction between the virtual world and myself, and we assume the role of spectator rather than participant. Therefore, I did not experience the plausibility illusion. If we refer to the existence/influence classification scheme we are a passive observant (Dolan and Parets, 2016). Whereas in De la Peña’s immersive journalism study the users felt distressed and as if they were about to be interrogated for real. This was aided by the user being able to see themselves in a mirror tied to the chair in the virtual world. Therefore, how the participant moved or acted affected the scene around them. In this example we can see a successful instance of both the place and plausibility illusion. Through the place illusion, experienced during Colored, I felt close to the characters and situation. This contributed to my feeling of empathy, as I believed to be there witnessing the events taking place. Although this could have been taken further if I had had some form of impact on the environment. This is where Colored could be improved upon, if we were more involved in the experience as a participant and not just a spectator, we could experience a higher level of presence.
Finally, we will note the sense of embodiment felt during the experience. Embodiment is used to describe the degree a user believes a virtual body is an extension of themselves (Slater 2016, p. 8). During Colored, we do not have a virtual body, and other than being told by the narrator we are Claudette Colvin, there is no other moment to suggest we are anyone other than ourselves. There is no sense of embodiment during Colored. It can be debated whether a virtual body would increase my empathy in any way, although without experiencing anything similar it is hard to say.
To conclude this section, we will now place Colored on the RV Continuum with both Clouds Over Sidra and the Gone Gitmo experiments for reference. As explained earlier Clouds Over Sidra was less immersive because of the lack of presence, this is the lowest on the list. Then followed by Colored, which was a very immersive experience although with no plausibility illusion or embodiment I cannot see it being as immersive as the Gone Gitmo experiments. Due to these factors, I have positioned these three works of immersive non-fiction on the RV Continuum in that order, shown in figure 3. I also found Colored to induce a greater feeling of empathy than Clouds Over Sidra. Feeling more immersed in the world allowed me to get closer to the story and characters. We have seen similar results on studies conducted with immersive non-fiction, where participants reported “the feeling of being there within immersive media amplified the impact of distressing or intense content” (Green, 2020).
Notes on immersion and empathy
Within this experience the level of immersion contributed towards my feelings of empathy, especially in relation to the other works reviewed. The level of presence was the main contributor to this effect. However, I do not claim a correlation between immersion and empathy across all immersive work. A meta-analysis was conducted by Ventura et al. reviewing 7 studies conducted on VR and empathy. The analysis found encouraging evidence supporting the use of VR to promote empathy. Ventura et al. also note that presence and embodiment are high contributors to changes in empathy (Ventura 2020, pp. 6-8). They also discuss limitations to their results due to a lack of studies that contain appropriate data. Drawing a conclusion on whether immersion and empathy are linked in immersive media was not the purpose of this reflection. Instead, it was to assess Colored in a critical context and see if the level of immersion contributed towards my personal feelings of empathy. Which I have shown it has.
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