6X9: A VIRTUAL EXPERIENCE OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

The Guardian, 2016

Francesca Panetta & Lindsay Poulton

Violence of isolation

What is it like to spend 23 hours a day in a cell measuring 6x9 feet for days, weeks, months or even years? 6x9 is the Guardian's first virtual reality experience which places viewers in an interactive, virtual segregation cell. The film aims to highlight the psychological deterioration and sensory deprivation that can be the effects of long-term solitary confinement for the people who have experienced it first-hand around the world. 6x9 is just part of a number of pieces the Guardianhas published about the use of solitary confinement, particularly in the United States. The psychological harm that results from limiting social contact testifies to the ways in which the mind can be as susceptible to harm as the body, and to confinement and social exclusion as a form of violence.

Image with permission of © Guardian