Yiwen Hu | Fly Me To the Moon: Escaping the Panopticon of Depression

 
Fly Me To the Moon is a Virtual Reality project that investigates the intersection between narrative psychology and media therapy in treating depression for Chinese college students. It’s a narrative-based emotional experience for working through one’s self-narrative and achieving greater resilience toward depression. VR intervention in mental health is an emerging field with promising therapeutic benefits. However, there’s a lack of translation from research to reality, especially concerning depression, a growingly significant issue for Chinese youngsters. This project aims to explore the field through the lens of narrative psychology, applying key concepts such as externalization and re-authoring of oneself in a narrative-focused VR experience. It hopes to help reconstruct a healthier self-narrative and build resilience for Chinese students who have depressive symptoms. Overall, it aims to explore the effectiveness of a VR-based narrative experience in treating depression, which could potentially address the lack of efficacy and accessibility in depression therapy in Chinese colleges and beyond.
The project is an immersive, linear VR narrative experience featuring the protagonist’s childhood and unpleasant memories through back-and-forth dialogues in one’s mind. The protagonist is stuck in the panopticon, a metaphor referring to depression patients who are trapped by one’s own imaginary standards. By reconstructing the interpretations of the past trauma, the protagonist is guided towards a more resilient self-narrative and ends up escaping the self-restricted panopticon. The project utilizes darkness, lighting, and silhouette representations to manipulate the user’s perception of the depressed patient’s world, with powerful audiovisual elements employed to depict the narrative reconstruction process. The protagonist’s light becomes brighter as they become more resilient, and all the guided dialogues end in a celebration stage where all the past traumas of the protagonist come into reconciliation, echoing the title “Fly Me To the Moon”.
By integrating narrative psychology principles into an emotionally captivating VR narrative experience, the project establishes a participatory narrative structure that allows users to protect themselves. The metaphorical design draws a parallel between depression and the philosophy of human connection. The final scene, where the protagonist is congratulated by people who hurt him/her before, is inspired by the Japanese anime Neo Evangelion. It symbolizes self-acceptance, reconciliation with others, and the end of isolation. As the climax of the experience, it encourages users to reflect on the importance of human connection and self-awareness. By fusing art and psychology through emotions, this project aims to effectively address the break in one’s self-narrative and contributes to the field of VR interventions for mental health in an innovative way.