VIRTUAL REALITY MEETS PUBLIC SPACE
Of course, you transfer the role models you have learned to your own later romantic relationships and love life. Even if I always had the feeling that I wanted more and just said it, I often paused and waited free online sex hookups. This is no longer the case. Not for a few years. At some point I got tired of it. It’s not that easy in a small town. After all, you still have to pay attention to what your neighbors think of you and what they expect. I understand that this is not just a small town phenomenon. The conservative notion is still generally anchored in Generation Y, since as children of the post-war / economic miracle generation we were all given a largely “traditional” family image. But even in the (non-existent) sex education or in sex education classes we do not get any real awareness of our femininity, our womanhood on the way. Funnily enough, it hits educational classes really well. You learn how children develop and how to prevent them, as well as diseases. Terrible diseases.
The “Cyborg Dating” project is a co-creation between Sander Veenhof and Rosa Frabsnap, first launched at the Impakt festival in Utrecht in 2014 and recently a version “2.0” was launched at the Ruhr Triennale.
Although VR is increasingly a mobile experience with people being able to move across a room, our participants experienced a walk through physical reality. A set-up that would be impossible to realised based on whatever thinkable sensors, but introducing a human guide enabled this possibility and it was the trigger to further explore a specific genre: “VR4two”.
To turn that into more than just a technical experiment, we came up with a theme and a story that would allow us to give meaning to the format. Going on a date seemed very suitable as a context to encapsulate all aspect into one coherent experience. Our first version consisted of a walk through the city centre of Utrecht, positioned on fixed GPS hotspots. The new version has been turned into a GPS based walk without fixed hotspots. In this version 2.0 we refined our interaction based on the Impakt experience and fore mostly: a storywriter was involved.
The devices participants use and the way of interacting is an integral part of the experience. It is not just the way to experience the story. It -is- our story. The story is about one person wearing a VR headset and another person guiding the clueless person through the physical world. It’s a glimpe into the future. The person wearing the VR headset is partially back in physical reality, coming from a time where all beings have chosen to replace all of their human aspects with digital representations, including their sight and even their mind. For this special occasion, the future being is being teleported back to the present. Halfway the ‘date’, the VR wearable is going from one person to the other, to let the future cyborg see the world anew. To make that into a significant moment, it was important to properly move the participant into his or hre role. We invited each couple to sit down for an automated briefing, listening to a story that would throroughly explain them the context and their role.
WHAT YOU NEED: Cyborg Dating is an experience for two people. Both of you need a smartphone. One smartphone needs to be a hi-end Android phone with a big screen and GPS and gyroscope features. This phone should be inserted into a Google Cardboard. The other phone can be a regular less powerfull phone, as it will only be used by the guide to recieve textual instructions during the date. WHAT WILL HAPPEN: You will be going on a date which will unfold while you make a small walk. If you’re the one wearing the Google Cardboard, you’ll be entering a virtual forest. You can walk to move through the forest. Your guide helps you to avoid obstacles in the physical space. The software uses the GPS signal for positioning, so it only works outdoors. HOW IT WORKS: Cyborg Dating is available as web-app. Both of you browse to this website. If you clicks the phone (left), you become the guide. If you click the cardboard icon (right), you become the cyborg. You need Google Chrome to access the Google Cardboard virtual reality. HOW TO START: The first step is to connect. After choosing your device, the cyborg device shows a number. The guide should enter this number in the text-field on his/her phone. After this is done, you both press start.




