In this 3D Scholarly Edition of LOL Surprise’s Pink Baby, we aim to showcase another facet of this doll by exploring the values, norms, and stereotypes of our society linked to her. The implementation of the 3D model, along with the articles, reflects our interpretation of existing societal issues, especially those related to consumerism and feminism. We aim to stimulate the viewer’s senses and offer them a new way of experiencing an object without physically touching it.
The creation of tours is one of the main features of Voyager which helped us communicate our findings with the viewer in an innovative way. The first tour seeks to capture the social and cultural relevance of the doll by presenting its history and its representation as a cultural shift in children’s entertainment practices. The second tour examines the doll through the lens of feminism, exploring stereotypes, gender, and post-feminism. The tours are camera-driven, and the elements are designed to immerse users in an interactive and immersive experience.
Creating the virtual tour was relatively straightforward, but the platform had several limitations that prevented us from presenting our narrative as intended. One of the main limitations is the amount of space available to write articles and their number. However, the ability to include multimedia such as images, videos, and hyperlinks allowed us to expand our narrative.
The platform offers little control over the model’s movements, with options restricted to pre-defined rotations and zooming, making it difficult to create smooth movements. Voyager's limited interactivity limits the creation of an engaging user experience. We wanted to realise a more interactive virtual tour where the audience would have the chance to explore the object further and trigger animations based on their actions. However, the platform's limited functionality made this challenging to achieve. In fact, while uploading articles was straightforward, creating the tour itself, integrating annotations and doll movements, proved to be more complicated.
Despite these limitations, the platform developed by the Smithsonian Institution offers some interesting features such as the measurement tool and the ability to visualize objects in different materials. In our case, knowing the precise measurements of the doll was sufficient. However, this function proves to be a valuable tool for presenting historical objects, archaeological artifacts, and opening new possibilities for researching and understanding an object.
In conclusion, this 3D Scholarly Edition combines text, images, sound, video, and a 3D model to create an immersive experience for all audiences around the L.O.L Surprise Doll: Pink Baby. While the inherent limitations of a digital platform prevent physical interaction with the doll, we hope that the tours we created will provide viewers with a comprehensive understanding of the doll’s cultural context and historical significance.