This project was made as an assignment for HKU, Utrecht.

About the project: What If? is a 120-second video exploring the moral dilemmas of a Virtual Reality machine that is able to visualise important choices in the user's life in order to be able to try out different choices to see how it'd pan out in real life. The machine takes the user into a VR simulation where they can try out different choices in the safety of Virtual Reality.

The story: The video shows the life of two main characters, Sophie and Roberto. Sophie is addicted to the What If? machine, constantly checking the simulations for every decision she has to make. Fed up with her addiction, Roberto breaks it off with her. In a desperate attempt to restore the relationship, Sophie goes back into the What If? machine and tries out every single possible choice to try and resolve the fight with Roberto. In the end, the only solution that'd save the relationship is one that the What If? machine was not able to visualise; throwing out the machine. However, the addiction will remain.

What did I do? So in this project I was responsible for the editing of the video, the graphics in the video and the machine design itself. In the video we went with a synthwave style. We didn't want to make assumptions on when exactly this scenario could play out and the synthwave style leaves room for imagination. The machine itself consists of old computer parts, LED modules and a fan to produce noise to really bring the machine to life.