
MemoReal
2020.7 - 2020.9
TEAM|Shuyi Wang, Xiaoting Tan, Yiran Wang
With the development of science and technology and the advancement of medical technology, the human life span has been extended, and population ageing has become increasingly prominent. More and more older people choose to live in groups such as nursing homes and elderly communities. However, such a move dramatically increases their risk of social isolation, family estrangement and the distance between families. Most older people stay in a limited space for a long time due to inconvenience and have less contact with the external environment.
Through contact and communication with the elderly, we found that the elderly showed great interest in sharing their life stories. There are many beautiful and important moments in their past lives, which are often associated with a special place or person. As reality space is constantly changing, is it possible for us to preserve memories for the elderly in virtual space?
FIELD RESEARCH




We visited a local nursing home(Shanghai Chengshan Road Nursing Home) and conducted semi-structured interviews with the nursing staff. The purpose is to obtain information about the main roles and responsibilities of nursing staff, group activities in nursing homes, literacy of the elderly, daily activities of the elderly, and connections with other residents and the external environment.

We conducted a total of 5 semi-structured interviews with five elderly (65 years or older) in the nursing home. The purpose is to obtain information on the following aspects: how the elderly get information, the elderly’s feelings of life, their contact with their families, and their contact with other residents and the external environment.

When we talked to the older people about their past lives, we saw the liveliness in their eyes, and they showed excitement different from usual. Some older people even talked about the hope of walking with us, travelling and sharing memories.


The elderly’s memory gradually decreases with age, and the risk of Alzheimer's disease gradually increases. They still have the desire to communicate with others, but their memory and language skills are gradually declining, their communication with family members is reduced, and there is a lack of communication media with the outside world (especially young people).

Based on the elderly's desire to keep and share their stories, we want to construct a virtual space to preserve their memories. With the help of VR technology, audience can enter the virtual memory space, and explore and experience the stories of the elderly.
DESIGN EXAMPLE
STORYLINE

STORYBOARD


VR INTERACTION


VR GESTURE
In early 2020, Oculus Quest started to support gesture recognition and released "Designing for Hands". We believe using gesture recognition in VR will make the experience more natural, and the sense of immersion such as physical simulation interactions in scenes will be stronger. It is a very potential VR input method. We refer to "Designing for Hands" to design some basic gesture recognition operations used in MemoReal.


AI SERVICE PROGRESS
We believe that, in the future, AI can help us to quickly generate access to key memories based on simple personal information collection(sounds, images,...) and convert them into a virtual construction that can be explored in VR, so that each person can have a virtual memory castle of his own.


This is a virtual memory castle example that can consist of a number of basic structures. The memory castle is divided into three levels by the importance of memories The enclosed areas are represented by light pink, medium pink, dark pink and purple. The most important space is located in the core area of the castle.

