BeeScapes

BACKGROUND BeeScapes is an immersive 360° / VR nature documentary-artwork, written, directed and produced by the lead researcher. Others on the research team served as scientific and creative consultants. Research shows that VR experiences that allow audiences to embody animals increases care for and involvement with environmental issues (Ahn et al, 2016). Until this project, there had been little, if any, examples of scientifically-accurate 360° video or VR experiences that allow audiences to experience aspects of the senses of bees. While research team members had developed methods for representing bee colour vision as well as bee spatial perception, these findings had not previously been represented in an immersive and interactive form to engage and excite general audiences about these topics. The research asks: Can a 360° / VR artwork-documentary be a suitable method for engaging general audiences about bee science? CONTRIBUTION BeeScapes is an interactive, animated 360° / Virtual Reality (VR) experience, exploring environmentalism, non-human realities, and systems of nature that are ordinarily invisible to humans. As an interdisciplinary team, we collaborated to explore how scientific principles could best be translated into an immersive artwork. Customised effects were programmed to depict various aspects of sensory perception. The work involved an iterative process of prototyping, testing, reflection on action, and refining. SIGNIFICANCE It is a rare example of a scientifically accurate VR-artwork that engages audiences to experience the senses of a bee. It has been viewed in excess of 130K times, including from international audiences. It was awarded $20K from the City of Melbourne and Creative Victoria. A virtual exhibition was held on an online website (beescapesfilm.com), supported by both funding bodies. It was showcased in the FIVARS Festival with physical exhibitions in Los Angeles and Toronto.