Concept
“Marija’s Last Song” or “Her Last Song” is an evocative VR experience that transcends time and space, immersing audiences in the deeply personal yet universal themes of memory, love, and loss. Rooted in the rich cultural and historical tapestry of Bitola, North Macedonia, the project tells the story of Marija, a woman who returns to her hometown to relive significant moments of her life before she passes away. By blending storytelling, music, and cutting-edge VR technology, the experience offers a poetic exploration of the past through Marija’s eyes, inviting users to journey through her memories as she reflects on love, war, and personal transformation.
Her Last Song
Research
The project was conceived during the ECHO Academy residency in Bitola, where extensive research was conducted into the region’s history, cultural heritage, and the significance of music in storytelling. Conversations with local residents, field recordings, and historical studies provided depth and authenticity to the narrative. Understanding the emotional and psychological impact of memory and nostalgia played a crucial role in shaping the project’s approach, ensuring that the experience would resonate on a deeply human level.
Experience Goals
The primary objective of the project is to create an emotionally resonant VR experience that fosters empathy and introspection. The immersive environment allows audiences to step into Marija’s world, experiencing her joys and sorrows firsthand. By utilizing 360° video and spatial sound, the experience enhances emotional engagement, making the viewer feel as though they are truly present within Marija’s memories. The goal is to push the boundaries of digital storytelling, using VR to not only tell a story but to make the audience feel it.
Inspiration
Inspiration for the project was drawn from the oral traditions of Balkan music and storytelling which heavily influenced the narrative structure, integrating traditional melodies into the immersive experience to evoke the passage of time and the echoes of the past. The landscapes of Bitola, its ruins, and its cultural history provided a hauntingly beautiful backdrop for Marija’s story.
Development
The VR experience was developed as 2 person project between me and the director Carlos Hurtado Munera. As a multimedia designer, my role in the project was to build the final version of the experience, bringing together audio, and 360 video within the virtual environment of Unreal Engine to create an interactive VR experience for the Oculus Headset. Meanwhile Carlos’ role centered around both capturing and editing the video and audio for the experience.
Throughout the projects development, there were multiple iterations in which both Carlos and I needed to talk back and forth in order to ensure to ensure that the impact and styling of the final product aligned with his vision for the project, yet was still feasible within software and hardware as well as my own technical limitations. Additionally, we both collaborated closely with the team in Macedonia to troubleshoot and enhance any further technical details we struggled sorting out amongst ourselves.
Initial concepts focused on a purely visual and narrative-driven experience, but as development progressed, music and sound design became integral to the storytelling. Marija was chosen as a universal figure—someone who has lived through immense personal and political changes and now seeks closure through memory and music. As a deeply introspective and resilient woman, shaped by love, loss, and the experiences of war, her story aims to touch viewers by making her a relatable and overall empathetic protagonist.
The choice to develop the project in a virtual VR environment was made to enhance the potential for immersion and overall emotional impact of the experience. In experiencing Marija’s story from her own perspective, with her own voice and including her literal point of view and putting them in front of our audience as if they were the ones experiencing it all themselves, we hoped to impart a sense of both empathy and nostalgia for a life none of us ever lived. In doing so we hoped to open a door towards self-reflection about our own lives and memories and how those might look like to others through a similar lens.
Final Thoughts
For both of us the completion of this project was an enriching experience. Through it we got to experiment with equipment and storytelling methods we had not used before. For me specifically the project provided the chance to experiment and expand my knowledge of coding, blueprints, and interactive design. Pushing myself out of my comfort zone and building for a device, like the Oculus, for which I had never had the chance previously to work with, opened my eyes to the opportunities VR and 360 video can bring to the table.
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