“Hearts and Minds: The Interrogations Project” is a Virtual Reality art installation developed using a novel method for direct output of the Unity-based virtual reality projects into CAVE2™ [Febretti et al. 2013] environment. This artwork incorporates original research and technological innovation in an adaptation of veterans’ testimonies detailing US military interrogations in Iraq during the American counter-insurgency campaign in the early 2000s. It uses VR technology to immerse participants in the minds of people who experienced torture and interrogation during the war to understand its current social and psychological consequences. The powerful content of this artwork focuses on the impact of war and trauma on veterans, and utilizes the power of VR as a medium to evoke empathy, understanding and awareness. This work was developed at the Electronic Visualization Lab in Chicago through a unique cross-disciplinary international collaboration between artists, scientists, and researchers from five different Universities. The methods developed for this project allow hands-on education of virtual reality by letting students create their own virtual environments and exhibit them in the CAVE2 quickly. These methods have been recently adapted by Design and Computer Science courses at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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Tsoupikova, D., Rettberg, S., Coover, R., Nishimoto, A., The Battle for Hearts and Minds: Interrogation and Torture in the Age of War. An Adaptation for Oculus Rift., Proceedings of SIGGRAPH ASIA 2016 VR Showcase, no 5, Macau, China, December 5th, 2016. https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2996383