Testing SAMA's VR memory capsule

As part of the Digital Street Art Depot project, SAMA developed a unique virtual reality heritage preservation component to document street art in an immersive experience, allowing for future generations to have the feeling of standing in front of massive murals in their real-life scale. The 3D space that this "memory capsule" puts users into contains a high quality scan of the artwork, several audio information points, and details about the creation of the piece. For the test phase of this VR component, only one artwork was loaded into the capsule for audiences to admire - Stinkfish's Smile - and throughout the month of January I was tasked with trying the capsule out on 30 participants, mostly from the daily visitors that SAMA receives.

I was first introduced to the VR capsule on my second day with SAMA, and quickly had to learn the basic controls. While quite popular in the gaming world, I had not used VR devices many times beforehand, and so for me too it was a fascinating, (literally) eye-opening experience; using the virtual space in this way hadn't really occurred to me, and the heritage preservation aspect seemed instantly like a valuable idea, with an even cooler execution. My own reaction was thus very positive, and as I became more familiar with the technical workings of the headset + controllers, so grew my appreciation for the time and effort that clearly must have gone into this project.

Conducting the tests

The procedure was relatively simple: wait for visitors to come by SAMA, after giving them the usual greeting and information on the collection ask if they would like to come inside and be part of a VR test, set up and help them to navigate the VR space, and then ask them to fill out the online feedback survey.

Already there were some obstacles; since this method of participant gathering is based on chance encounters, there was no reliable timeline (one day I could get 5 participants, another it could be 0), and among the visitor demographics, it was mainly young people who agreed to participate, making for a huge age bias in the response data. At the end of the day, all the friendly greetings and persuasion skills in the world cannot force the mid-50's German couple to take an extra 10 minutes out of their day and try out "some weird gadget".

Overall though, the tests went very smoothly and it was nice to see all the positive feedback we received. Explaining how the VR worked and helping with the navigation could prove a challenge, particularly if there was a language gap, but in the end we always managed. It was a fantastic opportunity for me to engage in and facilitate real-world research, particularly in this realm of urban heritage and novel preservation techniques. How can the street be captured in the digital world? What do people value about street art that makes it worth preserving in this form? And who should be in charge of this preservation?

I got a chance to learn more about these questions by attending the Stadscuratorium's "Stad als canvas?" city dialogue event at Pakhuis de Zwijger on January 30th - my last evening with SAMA - where (with some extra hands) I also got the chance to advertise and test out the VR capsule to a stream of attendees, most of whom already had a keen interest in street art. It felt like an appropriate culmination of the previous tests, a sort of "bringing it to the next level" at this fancy city event, which itself was very interesting to listen to.

Research value

Aside from its purpose as a preservation initiative for SAMA's collection, the VR memory capsule fulfills a second key function: collecting academic research data on the potential of VR in the cultural sector (and beyond). In coordination with Erasmus Rotterdam School of Management's Prof. Yvonne van Everdingen, these tests are being used as a research tool to gauge how consumers (in this case tourists/culture visitors) respond to and feel about virtual reality applications, in order to develop consumer-aligned innovations and gain insight on the breadth of opportunities for VR applications in society (ie. in which contexts does it seem to work well, how can it be optimized, etc...).

An additional goal - very relevant for SAMA too - is to determine how it can be integrated into business models (or even generate its own), and can yield both financially and socially beneficial results. Through the survey responses all this can be measured, and reaching the initial sample size of 30 participants did not prove to be all that time consuming.

While the obvious benefits and advantages of this project were well understood by most participants, it is also important to highlight the feedback for how to improve the experience; this was, after all, the point of the test phase, and the participants were directly encouraged to share their honest thoughts.

Just based on the conversations I had with them (they also gave written comments in the complementary survey), many shared the sentiment that the image quality of the virtual space could be improved, and that it thus could not be considered a "replacement" for the real thing. Others pointed out that navigating the user interface could be made more intuitive, and that getting to the actual artwork was sometimes a frustrating process.

I myself also encountered a few hiccups with the interface, and noticed that especially for those who had never used VR (regardless of age demographic) it could be a little tricky to understand. Conversely, those who had never used VR were also by far the most impressed with the overall experience, while participants who had the most previous encounters with VR had the least expressive reactions to seeing Smile in this immersive form.

Final thoughts

I have to say that working with the VR was the more fun side of my DSAD work, as it involved constantly meeting new people and discovering the potential of virtual reality applications for cultural organisations. I learned a plethora a new skills through this task: not just the technical mastery of the VR devices and effective communication (giving instructions, explaining value) but also how to conduct interactive research with diverse demographics and taking on the responsibility of facilitating a professional project for a deadline.

All in all, its been a privilege to take part in this initiative, and I hope that the VR capsule concept is able to continue improving and growing. Thank you SAMA for trusting me with this test phase, and I'm excited for what comes next!