BeAnotherLab is an international anti-disciplinary collective dedicated to investigate the relationship between identity and empathy, attempting to communicate, understand and expand subjective experience through embodiment and telepresent experiences. The collective was born in

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

The machine to be another

The "machine" is an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

system developed by BeAnotherLab which uses a

head-mounted display A head-mounted display (HMD) is a display device, worn on the head or as part of a helmet (see helmet-mounted display for aviation applications), that has a small display optic in front of one (monocular HMD) or each eye (binocular vision, bi ...

to transmit video from one person's perspective to another. The specifications for the system, including

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

, are freely available. The most recent iteration of the project uses the

Oculus Rift Oculus Rift is a discontinued line of virtual reality headsets, virtual reality headsets developed and manufactured by Oculus VR, a virtual reality company founded by Palmer Luckey that is widely credited with reviving the virtual reality indust ...

, a

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a Simulation, simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video gam ...

headset. In the first project to use the system, one person plays the role of "user"'' ''and the other "performer". They each occupy separate but identical rooms, and as the user explores the room the performer'' ''follows their movements in real time. Because the user receives video from the performer's perspective, the user feels as though they are inhabiting the body of the performer. As they interact with objects in the room, the performer'' ''transmits personal thoughts to the user through headphones to create a furthered sense of intimacy. A member of BeAnotherLab, Phillip Betrand, said of the experiment,

"We believe this allows for a deeper experience for a user, knowing that their point of view is that of an actual human being, and not a virtual avatar. In the last year, we’ve observed that subjects tend to demonstrate empathetic feelings towards the performers they didn't have before. They say that the experience has raised their awareness about the performers' social conditions, that they were able to go 'deep into this other person's life.'"

Daanish Masood, a member of BeAnotherLab and advisor at the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

Alliance of Civilizations The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) is an initiative that attempts to "galvanize international action against extremism" through the forging of international, intercultural and interreligious dialogue and cooperation. The Allia ...

, has since used the project to explore conflict resolution applications for tensions across cultural barriers.

Gender swap

Using a modified version of The Machine To Be Another system, Gender Swap allows a user to feel as though they are inhabiting the body of someone with a different

gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...

from their own. The piece focuses on the interaction between the sense of

touch The somatosensory system, or somatic sensory system is a subset of the sensory nervous system. The main functions of the somatosensory system are the perception of external stimuli, the perception of internal stimuli, and the regulation of bo ...

and

vision Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to: Perception Optical perception * Visual perception, the sense of sight * Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight * Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain und ...

. Two users of different genders wear Oculus Rift headsets which transmit the view from the each other's perspective. The users synchronize their movements and run their hands along their bodies. By associating the visuals from each other's point of view with the sensation of being touched, the users are supposed to have the sensation of inhabiting each other's bodies. In April 2014, the project won a Learning, Sciences and Humanities award from Laval Virtual, an annual event focusing on virtual reality projects. It was also awarded an honorary mention at

Ars Electronica Ars Electronica Linz GmbH is an Austrian cultural, educational and scientific institute active in the field of new media art, founded in Linz in 1979. It is based at the Ars Electronica Center (AEC), which houses the Museum of the Future, in t ...

. Because of the project's success, BeAnotherLab started a research collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in January 2015. In this collaboration they hope to further upgrade the hardware and software which comprise the Machine To Be Another, as well as to explore new social applications for the system.

References

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External links

BeAnotherLab

The Machine to Be Another's Main Website

Machine To Be Another video

Gender Swap video
Technology organizations Virtual reality companies Organisations based in Barcelona

The machine to be another

Gender swap

See also

References

External links