Mark Farid wants to take virtual reality in a strange direction. He doesn’t want to live in a virtual world for minutes or hours. He wants to use the Oculus Rift to live in a virtual world exclusively for 28 days.
28 days.
But Farid’s plan is fairly unique. It’s not a ‘video game’ thing. He wants to experience life from the point of view of another human being. The idea is that another human being will wear glasses that transmit a signal back to the Oculus Rift that Farid is wearing. He will experience life through this person exclusively. He will not communicate with other people, he will not talk to other people. During this whole period of time Mark Farid will not take off the Oculus Rift.
Our willingness for digital technologies take a more dominant place in our lives, obscures our experiences and how they affect our body and mind. And as a result, have started to change the way in which we see the world. As we spend more and more time looking at screens, our perception of the world changes, our perception of the other changes, and our understanding of ourselves change.
Mark Farid will be living the life of a person they are calling ‘The Other’: a heterosexual male that Farid has no previous relationship with. He will attempt to eat what he eats, drink when he drinks, shower when he showers, use the toilet when he uses the toilet. Pretty insane.
Farid is a performance artist and this is his art.
You can actually apply to be this ‘other’, a person who will ultimately be chosen by a group of Mark’s associates including his friends, his psychologist and a Director who is helping make a documentary about the experiment.
Above is a sort of highlight reel from a 24 hour experiment Mark did as a proof of concept. It seems fascinating.
There is a Kickstarter for the project and the team is asking for a fair amount of cash: 150,000 pounds to be precise, which tallies up to about $270,000 Australian. I’m assuming there are a lot of logistical issues with this experiment that might run up a bill like this.
You can find out more about the experiment here.
Via Gizmodo
Comments
10 responses to “Meet The Man Who Wants To Live In A Virtual World”
Alright then.
Don’t we have movies and cartoon shows from Japan expressing and warning us of this very future?
So many of them too 😛
Say goodbye to your eyesight.
Why??
Because Art!!
Seriously though, I’m with you on this. Seems a bit bizarre.
Donno if it’s purely just for ‘art’ (though it’s labelled as such). Seems to me like it’s also an interesting psychological experiment.
The movie will be called 28 Days and the sequel will be called 28 Days Later
I bet the other person is John Malkovich.
Like I said elsewhere, I’d like to see the justification for a quarter million dollars first…