What does it mean to interact with a documentary? In 1991, Bill Nichols proposed six different kinds of documentaries. Since then, the documentary form has been dissected, shifted, observed, turned on its head—and, with VR, we’ve been able to enter and engage with the doc in entirely new ways. REFLECTIONS OF LITTLE RED DOT is an interactive mixed reality archival experience that premiered at SXSW 2025, and this is a reflection on that striking Jury Award-winning work. DIrected by Chloé Lee, a heart-first XR storyteller and multi-modal creative, she followed a process that led to a moving experience that, to me, shows how heart and soul can be transmitted in VR with AI (not just as a tool but as an enhancer). Join me on an exploration and meditation of the soft yet poignant REFLECTIONS OF LITTLE RED DOT.
Why and how is this work soft? The softness for me is in how we experience the MR passthrough in the space, the animations and the intimate viewpoint of the filmmaker. With the use of passthrough, wearing the headset doesn’t immediately catapult you into a virtual world. Instead, you see your hands and begin the interactive doc by picking up a slide from a pedestal, placing the plastic into the projector’s viewpoint, and watching as the film “screen” projects.
The flickering projected light is virtual, yet I feel grounded because the room around me hasn’t changed. I am watching a private screening that plays with the space, gently overflowing with what feels like a lot of intention. Wispy white light drawings form an ephemeral table and stools. There’s no pushing or forcing of my gaze or my body. I choose to walk to the table because I’m curious. There’s an overlaying narration. A larger projection takes up the front of the room, the portal facing outwards into the SXSW booth labyrinth. Around the table there are vignettes that as I approach, I can focus my attention on to watch testimonies of Singaporeans talking with Chloé about their daily lives, thoughts, concerns, motivations, etc. It’s an archive reimagined. The archive comes from over 40 hours of footage featuring everyday Singaporeans as they “reflect on their collective identity during their country’s 50th birthday year,” in 2015 . This work is “built on [Chloé’s] existing research on personal and collective memory, exploring how space and architecture factor into remembering and reimagining narrative structures” and is “influenced by P.M. Szpunar’s idea of collective continuity, which focuses on how one’s sentiments about the future inform and reshape one’s relationship with the past.” By design and intention, we can “simultaneously glimpse an image of a future landscape and the original video and speaker, whose words and transcript were used as input for the AI image generator.” (Chloé’s writing on the work is publicly published, I’ve pulled from this throughout the article but here is the link to the full paper!)
Between 1953 and 1968, Singapore fought for independence from being a British colony to a nation state with its own currency and Prime Minister. Governmental decisions and responses to both external and internal forces made Singapore an early industrialization leader in the region. The title, REFLECTIONS OF LITTLE RED DOT, is rooted in the history of Singapore and its reclamation of an insult. In the late 1990’s Indonesian President Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie once dismissed Singapore as “nothing more than a little red dot” on the map. Singaporean leaders later embraced the term as a badge of pride, a reflection of their country’s resilience despite its size. I wasn’t familiar with the history of Singapore until experiencing this project and speaking with Chloé. In her paper on the project she put their growth into perspective saying, “over the past 60 years, Singapore has transformed from a landscape of villages into one of the most advanced societies in the world, boasting an average GDP of $127,565—the second highest globally per capita adjusted for purchasing power parity.” These archival reflections come from people who have lived through Singapore’s economic success, technological advancements, and increasing global relevance.
In just three generations, people have experienced both ultimate stability and total upheaval. Chloé explained, “While filming in 2015, I was interested in how people anchor themselves at a time when the constant need for progress accelerates development.” You don’t necessarily need this context before entering the VR experience, but you will walk away wanting to learn more. And you will reflect on questions of productivity. There are conflicting views among the interviewees. Some, like young restaurant entrepreneur Jonathan Lim and pastry chef Janice Wong, see the fast pace as necessary. To slow down is to fall behind. The fear of Singapore being “just a little red dot,” vulnerable to being erased by larger forces, remains. But productivity has its own costs—the loss of ancestral spaces, the erasure of personal histories, and, of course, the looming implications of climate change. What happens when you’re caught in a rat race, surrounded by others running just as fast? Many interviewees shared feelings of disorientation as their familiar landscapes gave way to ever-changing high-rises, all while uncertainty about the country’s future loomed. This push-and-pull between security and relentless progress is beautifully explored in this MR piece—a testament to the allowances of mixed reality and the talents of Chloé and VR developer Lucas Martinic.
After removing my headset, I spoke with Chloé about a Singaporean government policy that would be unimaginable for most Americans or Europeans. Given Singapore’s limited land, over 80% of it is state-owned. In 1964, the government formed the Housing Development Board (HDB) and launched a 99-year lease policy to ensure land renewal and prevent private hoarding. Check out this graphic outline of the ideal flat scenario of a 99 year lease:
Coming from hyper-individualistic conditioning where there is both a lot of land (stolen) and the pressures to be housing independent in your 20’s, this feels almost utopian. Of course, Singapore isn’t a utopia, and I can’t claim to know the intricacies of the country’s politics. There are mentions of a strict government. It is also clear from the testimonies that there is an internal buy-in with the majority of Singaporean citizens. But it just makes you wonder, can you imagine the certainty of a lease lasting nearly a century? It’s both a long time and not long at all. My general take away from this train of thought and questioning was that it’s just so valuable to be exposed to this alternative way of operating.
It was fun to reconnect with Chloé at SXSW because we first met a few years ago when she presented TEMPORAL WORLD at SXSW in 2023. This was the first project she and Lucas worked on together. In many ways, this recent work expands upon the ideas she explored then. About TEMPORAL WORLDS, Chloé writes, “this virtual world is not unlike our physical world; with distance and time, we often gain clarity.” For me, this feels deeply connected to her newest work. And honestly, it connects to something I find remarkable about artists in this space continually building upon their previous projects, evolving their work over time and how that manifests in what I see (as a professional watching VR and seeing works go from inception to final product the past 5 years). In Chloé’s paper on REFLECTIONS, she writes, “I continued to focus on themes of temporality, ways of remembering with new technology, and how imagination is vital in remembering.” I’m struck by how process-driven the most compelling VR pieces tend to be. Interactive documentary production with emerging immersive technologies is anything but straightforward (did I fit in enough XR buzzwords there?). It’s a world apart from molding clay with your hands, yet despite the vast difference in medium, there’s a shared, deeply human thread—an organic, iterative artistic process that unfolds over time. There’s also something so meaningful about the way Chloé questions the role of imagination. I personally feel this is a muscle that in some spaces seems to be atrophying. But in XR worlds, it’s the opposite. In returning to this field and the medium of XR, the notion of imagination building gives me hope.
Let’s get back to the project! How was REFLECTIONS OF LITTLE RED DOT made? I love learning the stepping stones to a full send XR work at a top tier fest! We talked about Chloé’s time in Singapore in 2015. But there are also roots connected to the 2020 lockdown. Without an avenue to work in the film industry, Chloé began experimenting with 3D worlds, virtual animations, and simply following what felt good (another example of being able to trust in the process!) Without TEMPORAL WORLD, which was made possible through a Fulbright scholarship bringing Chloé to Germany, this work wouldn’t exist. We spoke about this in the context of a U.S. government increasingly restricting international study opportunities and the deportation of international students. What’s at stake with current students being blocked, pushed out, rejected? We can’t know what is being stifled and shut down, we can only point to the important work that exists thanks to the openness of international collaboration and sufficient funding. And with the topic of a divided and chaotic American government, Chloé reflected on the creative process, noting that there’s always a stage where things really don’t look good. We are in that uncertainty now, and like with artmaking, you just keep working and hope for that phoenix rising from the ashes moment. And, perhaps, having these conversations can help the work we are doing, the work that prioritizes technology as a facilitator for deeper understanding.
In a very human way, REFLECTIONS OF LITTLE RED DOT critiques capitalism. But not with a forceful hand, rather a warm curiosity and care. Chloé and I discussed the pressures of being conditioned in an environment “needing to be productive, focused on end goal and outcome.” Shifting toward an abundance mindset requires collective change, but it can’t be imposed. Maybe works like this—soft, thoughtful, immersive—help plant the seeds for reflection in ways we can’t always measure. Of course, there’s the ever-present challenge of distribution. It’s easy to wonder, if only a few people experience the work, how much impact can it really have? But I’m tired of that question. We do what we can, where we can, and we keep going. Chloé said something similar—at least some of us have felt its depth. Chloé wants to bring this experience to Singapore, reuniting the original work with the current MR piece after a decade has passed. I’m convinced she will, and that the impact for those who see it will add enormous value in the need for interventions in public spaces as public art. And who’s to say what ripple effects will follow? Sometimes, small dots can be the mightiest.
A final note – the more I read Chloé’s paper written on REFLECTIONS the more I realize how subjective VR storytelling is and that this write up really includes a lot of my own personal reflections. I spoke with Blake Kammerdiener, main programmer of the festival after SXSW and he touched upon this as well. The medium is often so free for us to interpret and take what we bring into the experience away. For me, this work really embraces that freedom in such a compassionate way, for those interviewed and those who are privileged to be able to experience this work. We choose a slide, choose a stool to sit on, embody a trace figure, turn our head, and absorb the layers of memory and meaning how we can. I feel the way that Chloé and Lucas made this build function is absolutely invigorating for the medium and the way we can be exposed to stories. It’s a different experience for everyone. But I’m convinced that all can feel the heart and soul in this work.
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