LOGIN
LOGIN is a mixed reality experience exploring the proximity and distance of collaborations within different realms.
It is exploring the manifold ways of approaching new possibilities of interaction and collaboration in the realm of the virtual, the augmented and the real world. The installation is breaking the borders between these technologies and merging them in an experience that is supposed to give the recipient a unique impression of the underlying technologies.
Exhibited at Ars Electronica Center Linz and Laval Virtual Festival for VR/AR and Immersive Technologies. Supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum Paris.
The central part is a VR headset that can intrinsically only be used by one person. To break the isolatory quality of VR experiences a body tracking system was implemented to track the skeleton movement of persons surrounding the quasi-isolated central user. These persons can see a reference of the virtual world on a screen. On the one hand to get the impression of what the main user is seeing, on the other hand to locate themselves in the main user´s virtual world, where they are also present, but in the abstracted form the machine is able to recognize and understand. So in a certain way the main user is also taking the machine´s point of view. But mainly, due to the transition animation in the first minute of the experience and the aesthetics of the VR part, he is guided into the sensation of being abstracted to a data entity and therefore able to recognize himself in that abstract way.
Since the surroundings are also present in the VR part, and the real persons are able to understand the setup from the outside via the screen, a process emerges where these two parties are starting to connect. Technically spoken a parameter was implemented that, representing the distance of skeleton points recognized, is used to trigger connecting lines between the different user´s and users´ joints. This leads to a physical sensation of touching each other without being in contact physically. In this process of engagement with others a layer of intimacy is getting broken down. This sensation is being described as unique and by some even uncanny, whereas, although possible, there doesn´t even have to happen real physical contact.
The installation´s setup is also enabling engagement with each other without even the need of using the vr headset. In the next step coming in the near future it will also be exteneded with an augmented reality layer, where a second screen used as a table is giving a platform from which the visitors can take a third point of view to the scenery via their smartphones. This will be closing the circle of all basic MR technologies combined into one experience.