Maybe VR Shouldn't Give You Heaven—Maybe You Need Hardship

VR can impart experiences that range from being a Sudanese refugee seeking asylum to being a different sex, even to living with physical disabilities.
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James Day

Swimming with sharks! Behind the wheel of a Formula 1 race car! On board an interstellar expedition! Virtual reality promises immersive experiences that sound like sweepstakes prizes. For one group of designers, though, VR shouldn’t give you heaven, but hardship.

After researching neuroscience studies on “embodiment,” the cognitive illusion of being someone else, design collective BeAnother­Lab set out to give people a taste of adversity. A performer wears a vest with a first-person camera, which streams their perspective to a user’s Oculus Rift, along with a voiceover about their experience. As users interact with what they see in their headset, the performer mimics their movements, and the participants can witness in a very real way what it’s like to *be *the person whose story they’re listening to. The group has created shared experiences that range from being a Sudanese refugee seeking asylum to being a different sex, even to living with physical disabilities.

So far, the projects are all shown at universities and art residencies, but BeAnotherLab cofounder Philippe Bertrand sees a broader need. “CGI works, but you don’t need a machine to feel empathy,” he says. “Just look the person in the face and talk with them.” In one recent project, a dancer in a wheelchair spoke about the challenge of navigating city streets. When users sat in a chair, headset on, and manipulated a joystick, the dancer moved her wheelchair in a corresponding way; when users looked in a virtual mirror, they saw her face. But when they moved their legs, hers stayed still—which was by far the most moving part of the whole experience.