Journey Into Self

Project Link

Overview

Journey Into Self is an immersive Meta Quest VR experience grounded in cognitive science and personal memory. The self is deconstructed into a four-layer spherical virtual space — a spiral gallery the audience walks through. Directed by Chloe Gao and created by team YYY.MARFA, the piece invites viewers into a meditative environment that responds to gaze, motion, and presence.

Viewers follow the protagonist Anne through the gallery, stepping into different life moments and interacting with her at various ages. The structure is a framework — each audience writes their own narrative inside it.

Four-layer spiral gallery — concept diagram

The Experience

Space — the spiral gallery

Seven floating spheres suspended in a dark void. Each sphere reacts to the user's gaze and position; stepping close triggers a portal that teleports the viewer into a vignette from Anne's life.

Spiral gallery — floating spheres in the void

Self-space — reactive sphere interaction

Memory vignettes

Inside the portals: fragments of Anne's life — a beach at dusk, a snowfall forest, a quiet bench. Environments are built in Unreal Engine and tuned for Quest standalone: forward rendering, bespoke shaders for the volumetric sky and fog, aggressive LOD and occlusion to hold 72 Hz on-device.

Backstage — the sound-reactive ceiling

A darker, introspective layer. A ceiling installation driven by audio and breath reveals hidden emotions as the viewer moves through.

Theater — the pond and the floating rock

The closing chamber. A central pond with a floating rock serves as a realization space; completing the ritual teleports the viewer out of the experience.

Theater — central pond and floating rock

Recognition

Shanghai International Film Festival XR (SIFF XR) 2024 — Official Selection · Me and Myself theme · PUSH Art Center, Shanghai · June 14–23, 2024 · FIAPF A-category festival (same tier as Cannes)
AIXR XR Awards 2025 — Finalist, Category J-B02 Experimental Story Formats (team: YYY.MARFA)
Graphis Gold Award 2024 — for the accompanying project poster

My Role

VFX Artist. Built the real-time visual-effects layer for the Quest standalone experience:

Atmospheric and environmental FX — volumetric fog, god rays, and particle systems for the gallery void and each vignette (beach dusk, snow fall, pond mist)
Portal and transition effects — sphere-surface distortion and teleport effects between the gallery and the life-moment scenes
Shader FX — reactive shaders on the seven gallery spheres; water, surface shimmer, and floating-rock treatment in the Theater
Optimization for mobile VR — particle and shader cost tuned to the Quest forward-renderer budget so FX hold frame-rate on-device

(Detailed technical breakdown to follow — shader passes, particle systems, perf targets.)

Context

The piece was shown at SIFF XR 2024 under the festival's Me and Myself theme at the PUSH Art Center, Puxi Financial Plaza, Shanghai. SIFF XR is the XR program of the Shanghai International Film Festival, an FIAPF A-category festival drawing 450,000+ annual visitors. Full experience runtime: ~15 minutes.