1.4 Tribute: Virtual Me

Some may think that Virtual Reality is a technology developed within the past two decades. However, VR only became recognised by the general public because of the rapid progression of technical capabilities. The History of VR is filled with peculiar contraptions and enormous devices which are put on like a helmet. An example of these HDM's (Head Mounted Display) are: the Sensorama, the notorious Virtual Boy and the bulky Toshiba Bubble Helmet. 

'Virtual Me' is a tribute to the old-school Virtual Reality devices which predates the year 1995, are bulky in size and are not that user friendly.

The piece consists of an avatar wearing an HDM and existing within a digital world with a mixture of real and digital objects. The avatar is an 3D scan of myself wearing a cardboard box representing a cumbersome retro HDM.

Goals of the piece are to illustrate the blurred lines between reality and digital spaces and to depict the accessibility of the Virtual Reality medium (this example can't be observed within VR yet, soon to be implemented).

While creating the piece I experimented with the digitalisation of physical objects and working with physical objects most of the time. The HDM used in the final piece was laboriously constructed out of cardboard boxes and tape. For the HDM's design I searched the internet for bulky VR devices for inspiration, after analyzing the different features I created some designs for the construction. After construction I experimented with the app "Display.land", this app was used to create the 3D scan of myself using my mobile phone.

Moodboard