It has been a big couple of weeks in terms of milestones for the Ignite*Energy project.
Last week I presented two papers at the IREE2019 conference in Brisbane, organised by GEER. The first paper was an overview of my MSci research project with some early findings from the online survey which ran late in 2018. The second paper explored the methods of the study, focusing mainly on the development of a virtual reality (VR) experience, built with Unreal Engine. The VR experience takes the form of an energy savings console.
This week has been very exciting for the VR aspect of the project, presenting workshops for Ignite*Energy with Josiah from Lobaki. We have worked together for some time to develop a VR experience about household energy use, culminating as the ‘energy choices console’ which explores some of our habits at home.
We also had some visitors drop in with Choi (Associate Professor Young Jun Choi from Cheong Ju University, South Korea) coming along to test the VR – very kindly bringing a delicious lunch. Choi’s research is focusing on “experiencing screen healing through natural scenery.” We showed him the console as well as our Ancient Journeys : DNA Music 360 VR work which he enjoyed very much.
The participants offered a wealth of information about how they manage their energy use at home. All of the group were renters and they overwhelmingly displayed a high level of literacy around managing energy use at home. Many innovative ideas came up in the workshop and it is very encouraging to see people taking action to maintain comfort at home while reducing energy costs.
Ignite*Energy is a pilot project which we hope to expand upon in the future. The people who participated in the workshop all offered very constructive feedback about how to improve the VR experience, how to increase reach to the appropriate groups who would benefit most and much more.
Today Josiah and I talked a little about our other pet project, which has evolved from connections to Ancestral Journeys and 9 Rivers. It seems like a real luxury to share ideas on this project, one that is growing very much from the heart space and intuition, the very elements which I struggle to reconcile as a reluctant scientist. The space of cosmology, the planets, intuition, mythology and metaphysics draws me into different kinds of story-worlds, ones that can not be easily hypothesised and analysed. This is the science of sacred geometry and many layers and ways of understanding the world through the echos of time. So wonderful to spend time pondering ❤
Acknowledgements
Immense gratitude to my collaborator Josiah Jordan and the team at Lobaki, Christian Norwood, Lawrence Pillers and Zeke Zimmerman. Thank you guys for bringing ideas to life in the virtual space. Also a big thank you to Martin Drury for all your support with documentation and being the uber driver 🙂
Tracey M Benson || Bytetime 