I am both at my desk and in a Jordanian refugee camp. An apparatus embraces the upper part of my head, slightly weighing down on my skull. I am able to visually explore the mediated space in which I find myself: a small, sparse, windowless room. The walls here have the sheen of light plastic material; slim mattresses are arranged on the floor; a CRT television is propped in a corner beneath a single shelf; a clothes hamper and a couple of mirrors are the only other furniture. I hear the voice of a young girl and look around to find the source – she sits on the floor, talking to me in a language I don't understand. Her voice is tinny and echoes, a marker of inexpensive audio recording equipment and the poor acoustics of this prefabricated space. But an English translation of her words begins speaking above this in the mix, and this other voice is much closer and richer, reverberating around my skull thanks to the in-ear headphones that accompany my PS4 virtual reality rig.

Through this voice-over, the girl introduces herself as Sidra. She tells me that she is from Syria, but has lived here in the Zaatari camp in Jordan for the last year and a half. I am at her eye-level, seemingly sitting across from her, sharing space on the Persian rug. As I settle in to hear more, my vision darkens – a fade through black takes me to the same room, but later, and I presume that the other children of various ages suddenly in this space are the family Sidra is currently describing. Unlike Sidra in those earlier moments, her siblings gather themselves to leave without acknowledging my presence at all, a snub which seems aligned to my new position, which is higher than them, looking down (probably the height of an average standing adult). Over the following seven minutes I am granted a tour of the refugee camp, oriented by the translated voice-over. Routines of school, cooking, sports, videogaming, fitness, and eating are shown in such a way that I am placed firmly at their centre, albeit for the most part as an unacknowledged observer. At the end of this tour, Sidra comments that she feels she has been here long enough, and would like to leave.