The “Machine to be Another” virtual reality environment creates experiences in which you can embody someone else. On the left, a participant is immersed in the first-person story being told in the video as a facilitator gently mimics the motions happening on screen. On the right, the video as seen through a VR headset. (Still image from video by Aileen Imperial/KCTS 9)
A new experience goes beyond the headset to bridge connections and build empathy.
Standing in the busy railway station in Utrecht, Netherlands, I feel a billow of air whoosh across my face with each arriving train. I see people pour off the platform and into the corridor; they make quick eye contact with me and walk past. All around, I hear the cacophony of mass transportation. And inside my head, a voice: “I work here in Amsterdam with two other trans guys — we’re called the transketeers.” Two young men walk up to me, smiling warmly. One gives my arm a gentle squeeze and the physical sensation makes me feel grounded, among friends.
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Except this isn’t me and I’m not here. I’m in someone else’s body.
This body- and border-crossing moment comes courtesy of The Machine to Be Another, a sci-fi sounding virtual reality (VR) experience developed by an international collective called the Be Another Lab. The group’s focus is on creating empathy-driven experiences that “bridge cultures and promote mutual understanding.”
By combining high-tech VR with low-tech physical interactions (in the above example, a facilitator waved a clipboard back and forth to create the “air” from the trains, and clasped my arm at the same moment as the transketeer in the headset video), the Be Another Lab creates so called “embodied narratives” — academic lingo for stories you feel in your body.
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Source: Crosscut