Pedagogue at the Void: Notes on Transmedia Entertainment

In Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, during the deep freeze, there is a place to experienceExperience a trek through a South American jungle, a battle against a robot army or the inner world of 16-bit videogames. These game-like experiences, called ‘dimensions,’ are available to shoppers at West Edmonton Mall who are able to enter into imaginary spaces at the VOIDVOID. With digital devices such as virtual realityVirtual Reality (VR) (VR) head-mounted displays and motion-tracking hapticHaptic vests technologyTechnology, these transmediaTransmedia experiencesExperience involve multiplayer spaces and environmentalEnvironmental controls (a blast of heat from a volcano, a shiftShift of momentum from an elevator or movingMovemoving platform) with all six degrees of freedomFreedom enabled. In another way, these dimensions enfold two worlds into one: the digital simulation that surrounds the customer, and the actual floorspace of ramps, doorways, and environmentalEnvironmental controls that are monitored by VOID employees who ensure the safety of customers in their virtualVirtual realm. Taking the Greek origins of pedagogue as one who leads another to their lessons, what do the customers at VR centers feelFeel/feeling about the snowy realityReality/realities before and after entering each dimension? Through interactions between a researcher and VoidVOID pedagogue, we give shape to the transmediaTransmedia dimension and mapMap/mapping out its potentialPotential educational boundaries.