Cyborg Dating
Although we share one public space, we’re actually inhabiting a personalised ecosystem of apps that define our reality wherever we go. The smartphone has changed the way we position ourselves in the world, but the next upcoming mass medium is about to change it once again, radically. Augmented reality was going to merge our real and virtual lives, but AR has suddenly been dumped in favor of the much more immersive VR worlds of Oculus Rift. But if we end up sitting at home to experience the world, will there be any public in our public spaces?
Fortunately, with Google Cardboard we can take VR to the streets. Although it’s a challenge to experience “outdoor VR” safely, some problems can be turned into opportunities, even opening up a new world of interactive forms of engagement. Cyborg Dating shows a simple solution that is a statement against current mainstream home use of VR. No walking-simulators, but real walks through the city. No sensors or cameras, but a human as guide and narrator. It will look weird if half of the people is present in a parallel universe, but at least our public space will not be fully empty.
Credits:
Programming: Sander Veenhof and Paul Siegmann
