Nature/Virtual trauma research track 1980 - 2026
Formative years:
Born: Coventry 1972
Lived: Hinckley Home of Ada Lovelace
Aged 10 - programmed ZX Spectrum with brother.
Brother joined Demoscene and went on to working IT in the car industry
I went back outside to be immersed in nature, growing trees and making things with my hands.
A career advisor advised me to be a children’s art teacher.
I was told ‘There is no point in educating a woman as she just grows up to get married and have children’.
I wanted to be a sculptor but couldn’t afford a kiln so I took up painting for commission in the evening while working in a surveyors office in a large corporation.
I developed a rudimentary database in a IBM mainframe run corporation where, using their first PC, I developed a rudimentary database to track reports using Lotus 1-2-3.
Married and had children (IPV)
Joined Coventry University as a late returner (2007)
Academic research track
From nature to the virtual - Practice-based research track 2007 - 2026
Time (to mind) 2009, Immersive-Interactive Animated film with kinetic projection screen
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Time : Amygdala (Fear response) |
Time projection (2009)
The Watch: Wayfinding and proprioception (sense of self in space-time) 2010 - 2014
Study in Edale, UK.
The watch (2010-2014)
Navigation and wayfinding using natural ‘signs’.
This image reveals the direction of the wind in the valley.
The Watch : View from Mam Tor, Edale (2010 - 2014)
Routes through natural terrain (plan view)
The Watch: Proprioception of self Animating in natural environment
Campillo De Adentro, Peurto de Mazarron, Spain.
The Watch : Reenactment of animating in natural environment - Campillo de Adentro
Embodied knowledge acquisition RCA (2011)
Capturing knowledge through practice (heuristics - trial and error) demo
Explaining practice-based research to theoretician of screen-based animation
Helix: An animators animated brain
Presenting practice based Immersive Animation research - as a spiral with interconnected experiments.
Recall, memory, embedded-embodied knowledge
Presented at University Southern California (USC) USA (2013)
Helix: Animated Film (3Ds Max CGI model and animation) 2013
Presented at USC, USA.
Helix (practice-based research App prototype) 2014
St Andrews Mental Health Hospital VR ward development & testing (2016)
Unity experiments : lighting (2018)
Falmouth University
Wayfinding, Pinch points, terrain modelling and navigation (2018)
Falmouth University
Falmouth : 360 photograph of the coast
Helix VR : Immersive-interactive representation of practice-based research (2020)
Immersive-Interactive Safety Design Research
Falmouth University
Douglas Browne
PhD Thesis on The suspension of disbelief in videogames
Gaslighting project research
Virtual world building in VR using Unity
Cinematic navigation and control in videogames
Exits, pinchpoints, prospect and refuge
IPV counselling LWA (Women’s aid)
Unbreakable project
Birdstone (2023)
Illustration from the book layout
Unbreakable
Living without Abuse (LWA)
Violence against women act
Domestic abuse law
Coercive and controlling behaviour in IPV
The Wood : Experimental Immersive-Interactive (HMD VR) space
The wood is the virtual space in which various safety mechanisms could be practically tested and which is embedded on a level of the Helix model alongside experimental work.
Time (2007) observed how motion and events appear to slow when encountering a traumatic event. It could potentially point to the incitement and stimulation of the amygdala causing the brain to take more ‘snapshots’ of the event nd thus appearing to slow down the motion as one would when making stop-motion animation… taking more photographs of an animation scene will slow down the motion when taking less photographs would speed it up. It is believed that this is due to the persistence of vision which holds an image in the mind while the next is shown and that if this happens at a rate frames per second the mind registers one second of smooth motion. This can be slowed and quickened in n no toon arc so that the motion is not consistent, often used when a character starts a walk cycle.
Exploring this idea further, we might think about experiences that create calmness, reducing fear responses. This could be when one encounters a natural experience such as walking through a beautiful wood or observing a seascape…
This paper examines the function of the brain when walking in nature and in urban spaces. It measures differences in amygdala excitement using MRIf.
How nature nurtures: Amygdala activity decreases as the result of a one-hour walk in nature
This may be one solution in reducing stress when within a traumatic scenario but it is only one of the many way that safety could be embedded into an immersive experience however, using women’s lived experience of trauma, specifically IPV could help define a robust set of safety design principles for immersive environments (and potentially beyond into real, physical, online, digital, domestic and urban spaces).
The outcomes of the project could impact on meta policy, urban development and social behaviour. A more specific example could be that a set of defined safety design principles, when applied to developing a first responder training scenario, while also delivering VR as an ‘empath machine’ allowing early responders to ‘sept into the shoes’ of an incident and those involved… could do so while being in complete control of the experience, allowing for a sense of agency in the training experience with outcomes allowing the building of knowledge, experience, insight and resilience, delivering fully compliant experiences for the organisation, protecting learners from potential harm, managing vicarious trauma through simulation that is not public-facing.
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