IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - January/February 2020 - 13

Figure 2. Kimberly Hieftje's keynote on Day 2 of
IEEE GEM.

delving into the works of eccentric and irascible
artists to draw inspiration in building immersion
into technology-based experiences. Our journey
began with a consideration of the Anne Frank
house in Amsterdam; capturing the ambience
and aesthetic of an old, sparsely furnished town
house in a virtual or mixed reality experience
requires a focus on intangible, emotional, and
nonsensory elements of the experience. Immersion requires more than a duplication of the
visual and audio elements of an environment to
fully capture such unique experiences.
Thayer then led us on a fascinating journey
into art history, drawing inspiration from the
works of Salvator Rosa, known for his unorthodox, extravagant, and rebel lifestyle. We
can learn a great deal about creating engaging
and immersive experiences from the past, and
the subtle devices and metaphors incorporated into old masterpieces find analogous
representations in todays augmented and
mixed reality.
Kimberly Hieftje's focus on the use of gaming
technology in the healthcare sector is a regular
theme at IEEE GEM, and Kimberly, director of
Play4Real lab at Yale, gave a talk, Figure 2, on
smokeSCREEN VR, a virtual reality videogame
intervention focused on e-cigarette and vaping
prevention in high schools.
This work was cofunded by Oculus research.
The game, smokeSCREEN VR, represents a collaboration with local high schools and student
focus groups. The player must navigate different
types of peer pressure, including the pressure to
vape in various social situations such as in the
school bathroom, in the back of a classroom,
and at a party.

January/February 2020

There is significant potential for VR to impact
health education and behavior change, especially
in adolescent populations vulnerable to adopting
risky behaviors such as vaping. The VR environment of smokeSCREEN VR uses voice recognition
software, which allows the player to practice
refusing peers in real time. The player must navigate different types of peer pressure, including
the pressure to vape in various social situations
such as in the school bathroom, in the back of a
classroom, and at a party. The goal is to empower
students to handle realistic social situations in a
practical and realistic manner.
Other Keynote sessions were presented by
Hyphen-Labs, and Anna Dyson of Yale.

SPECIAL EVENTS
The interactive media facilities and a range of
custom exhibit and presentation spaces at the
Yale CCAM facilitated new modes for the presentation and exhibition of performances, artworks,
and immersive experiences that leveraged the
emerging technologies of motion capture, virtual
reality, and augmented reality. These included
not only static exhibitions and demonstrators,
but also a number of dynamic and inspirational
"digital performances."

CURATED EXHIBITIONS AND
DEMONSTRATORS
The conference features 14 curated exhibitions and six project/demonstrators. These were
located in a "digital exhibit" corridor or in a number of specialized "immersive experience" spaces,
located in the Yale CCAM.
Exhibits ranged from multiparticipant immersive VR Worlds, through a range of "digital" artistic works built on various framework leveraging
state-of-art digital media. Delegates could visit
museums, experience working in an Indonesian
village or explore extraterrestrial environments
with powerful audio and visual cues that were at
times both unnerving and perceptually disturbing.

PERFORMANCES
There were four "performances" interspersed
with conventional keynotes. These were held in
several immersive performance spaces, such as
at the CCAM. Performances blended a mix of

IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - January/February 2020

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