Developed over the course of three days at DOK Leipzig‘s interactive documentary Hackathon, Bottle Episode is a VR prototype in two parts, dealing with mental health and anxiety.

Users are invited to explore the body’s physiological responses at the onset of a panic attack, before engaging in an interactive outer-body experience subtly encouraging a set sequence of stretches that aid relaxation and slow breathing. Using the metaphor of catching a fly as a symbol for bottled-up anxieties, the experience borrows from a documentary approach as well as Tai Chi and Qigong movements. Bottle Episode experiments with the notion of user agency and control as a potential way out of an anxiety attack.

Developed by Team Three, Bottle Episode won the jury’s Kickstarter award for its innovative approach to using VR in the field of mental health and its level of technical, narrative and visual sophistication at the end of a short and intense three-day development period.

 

After using temporary assets for the prototype, the project is currently evolving towards a more refined outcome.

Team Three are (L to R):

Simon Ryninks (film maker), Eric Schockmel (animator), Adriaan Wormgoor (creative technologist), Lauren Moffatt (VR artist), Israel Bañuelos (sound designer).

The creation of the Bottle Episode prototype has been kindly supported by the artist mobility programme of the National Cultural Fund of Luxembourg (FOCUNA).