Our imaginations have the power to transport us to different places and times simply by closing our eyes. But what if we didn’t have to close our eyes to see new perspectives? Our ability to visit places, known and unknown, is transforming as the world becomes increasingly more high-tech, with virtual reality on the cutting edge of this change. Filmmaker Nyla Innuksuk has embraced this shift, creating films that combine her love for storytelling and virtual reality technology. Through her creations, Innuksuk encircles us inside new worlds where we can experience them with our eyes wide open.

If you’ve never experienced a virtual reality (VR) video before, ask Nyla Innuksuk to explain it to you—and prepare to be captivated. During our interview, Innuksuk lifts a mug up to her webcam, describing what I would see and hear through a pair of VR goggles.

She explains that in virtual reality, you can walk backwards and forwards, and see all the way around the mug. The experience is different from the 360-degree videos found on YouTube or Facebook in which you’re fixed in one place, confined by a flat 2D image. From there, you can’t see the back of the mug or walk behind it.

On a technological and artistic timeline, VR, 360-degree video and augmented reality (AR)—which layers digital objects on top of real-world imagery—are still in their early days. Yet Innuksuk has already made a name for herself in the emerging interactive film industry, reaching audiences with her immersive projects.

Still from Innuksuk's first feature-length film Slash/Back, 2020 COURTESY THE ARTIST

Born in Iglulik, NU, in 1986, Innuksuk grew up in Iqaluit, NU, before moving to Kingston, ON, at the age of eight. From a young age Innuksuk was fascinated with horror and sci-fi movies, thanks to her mother’s love of Alfred Hitchcock and scary stories. Throughout our interview, she reminisces about childhood films—shockers like The Shining and Jaws, as well as E.T. and Hackers, in which she recalls the villains wearing VR-like headsets. “One of my strongest early memories of watching movies was in grade three with a friend. My mom had rented the movie The Birds for us,” recalls Innuksuk. “I remember thinking this is way too scary for us but also, it’s such a thrill.”

When Innuksuk moved to Toronto at 17 to study film production at Ryerson University, her mother left her with clear instructions: “Promise me you’ll make the scariest movie I’ve ever watched.” Innuksuk has worked hard to keep that promise, first experimenting with horror and Inuit storytelling through her 15-minute short Kajutaijuq. Released in 2014, Kajutaijuq follows an Inuk hunter across the Arctic terrain as he tries to survive using traditional skills passed down by his grandfather. That same year, Innuksuk’s passion for storytelling and film spun off in a new direction when she discovered VR at an indie gaming meet-up in Toronto.

Still from Slash/Back, 2020 COURTESY THE ARTIST

At the time, the interactive film scene was made up of early enthusiasts. Headsets were still clunky, and Facebook and YouTube hadn’t yet launched their 360-degree players. Anyone wanting to film in 360 degrees had to fasten a cluster of cameras together into a ball (Innuksuk created a camera using a bunch of GoPros held together with 3D-printed holders). Her curiosity with the medium grew quickly, and by the following year she was walking around Toronto with VR goggles in her backpack.

The initial feeling of working with VR reminded Innuksuk of trying to make movies with friends in high school. “We had no idea what we were doing; we would just be doing it for fun,” she says. “But that’s how we learned to do it and most importantly where we learned we had a passion for it.”

While early virtual immersion was enchanting for its storytelling possibilities, there were unavoidable technical challenges. Stitch lines—the seams in a 360-degree video where footage from one camera meets another—were poorly constructed. Latency, which is the delay between human action and the headset’s reaction, caused nausea in viewers. Despite its shortcomings, the technology’s active development drew Innuksuk in. “You really are doing stuff that hasn’t been done before, which is different than with movies,” she says. “There is no expert [in the field]. You’re making mistake after mistake, but you’re also learning and getting better.”

Stills from Innuksuk’s 360-degree video for the song Indian City by The Halluci Nation COURTESY INDOOR RECESS PUBLIC RELATIONS INC.

That early adoption and hustle helped Innuksuk connect with other creative professionals across Canada. In 2017 she became imagineNative’s first Indigenous VR/AR resident, through which she collaborated with The Halluci Nation (previously A Tribe Called Red) to produce a 360-degree video for the group’s song, Indian City. The video takes place in the middle of a dance battle between streetwear-clad break-dancers and powwow dancers outfitted in full regalia. A giant pixelated avatar of an Indigenous man hops around in the background, bouncing off Toronto’s skyline and the surrounding trees. Whether you see him or not depends on where you’re looking.

As enticing as the project’s visuals are, it’s the moving soundscape that makes the video a memorable experience. Depending on which group of dancers are gazed upon, the sound adjusts. Look at the traditional dancers, and the powwow music is amplified; turn to watch the break-dancers, and the electronic beats take over. For Innuksuk, it’s that element of interaction that brings the video into VR territory, as the viewer suddenly has an impact on what is being seen or heard.

Innuksuk speaks to the crew during filming of Slash/Back, 2020, Panniqtuuq, NU, 2019 COURTESY THE ARTIST

As VR producer on the CBC short documentary Impossible to Contain, Innuksuk revealed the technology’s ability to tell more personal stories. Examining the aftermath of a diesel spill near the First Nations community of Bella Bella, BC, the 360-degree video travels on helicopter rides, along the impacted waterways and into one family’s home for a feast. During the scene, the camera is positioned at the centre of the table, surrounded by five family members, plates of food and condiments. The narrator introduces each individual in a manner that encourages gazes to shift to each person being described. This intimate point of view gives the illusion of holding physical weight in the space and in the story.

In late 2016, around the same time Innuksuk’s credits in the VR world were growing, she became severely ill and was given a 50/50 chance of living through the month but didn’t stop working. “When you’re working in interactive you can think, ‘Oh my gosh, I have to be the first to do this.’ And for someone like me, if the opportunities are there, it feels like you have to take advantage of them.”

During the six months between her prognosis and liver transplant in May 2017, Innuksuk helped launch 2167, an immersive media project featuring a series of VR films created by Indigenous artists. She recalls having to wear slippers out in the snow to do camera tests for Danis Goulet’s The Hunt, due to the water weight she’d gained.

Still from Slash/Back, 2020 COURTESY THE ARTIST

After recovering from surgery, Innuksuk re-evaluated her value as an artist. “I had this realization that if I’m going to live and am going to be working as hard as I have been, I want to actually be doing and telling stories that I want [to tell] my way.” This manifested in her decision to write and produce her first feature-length film, Slash/Back, in which four 14-year-old girls chase down and battle extraterrestrial creatures that invade their home community of Panniqtuuq (Pangnirtung), NU. The sci-fi adventure is due to premiere later this year.

Innuksuk was also inspired to start up her own VR production company—Mixtape VR—and she expanded her writing credits as well, co-creating Marvel Comics’ Inuk teenage superhero, Snowguard, who wields mystical shape-shifting powers. Despite an outpouring of projects across different mediums, that early passion for VR hasn’t dwindled. “My movies feel like my job and then VR is this amazing new way of telling stories that is really creative and a cool thing to explore,” she says.

Marvel Comics character Snowguard COURTESY JIM ZUB © 2021 MARVEL

Although virtual technology has evolved significantly since Innuksuk’s first experiments, one key roadblock remains: accessibility. That factor—who actually owns headsets and how are they integrated into different spaces—is proving to be a particular challenge for the interactive mixed-reality exhibition Innuksuk is currently planning at Qaumajuq, the new Inuit art centre at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in Manitoba. Based on the Inuit belief system of Sila, in which every living thing is connected by an invisible breath, the exhibition will allow audiences to interact with both virtual and physical elements within the gallery. How exactly those interactions will manifest is part of Innuksuk’s artistry. She says, “It’s really fun to tell this story through this totally different medium that is taking advantage of the fact we’re going to be taking up space in a physical environment.”

To create an exhibition experience that “feels like magic,” Innuksuk must first determine which interactive technology is most suitable—VR headsets, mobile phones featuring AR apps, headphones or a combination of technologies—alongside the ways visitors can use their physical bodies to influence what is seen or heard. One of the many layers Innuksuk is considering is changing the soundscape as you walk closer to another person or piece of artwork to create a feeling of interconnectedness.

Of course, the limitations of interactivity within a gallery space are still unknown in the post-COVID world. But Innuksuk will continue to push the technology’s creative limits in an effort to achieve the desired “sense of presence” VR strives for.

Kaylee Maddison is a Canadian freelance journalist. She has written on the arts and culture for publications including Up Here, Toronto Star, Visual Arts News and more.

This Feature was originally published as “Immersive Worlds” in the Summer 2021 issue of the Inuit Art Quarterly.