Tian Jin | BEING AROUND: BEING AROUND: Co-presence in Screen-based Virtual Reality

 
BEING AROUND is a multi-user interactive experience that seeks to contextualize real-life human interactions in screen-based virtual reality where co-presence happens and brings mutual influence. Through a variety of theories and effects, the presence of others has been studied in various fields and proved influential to people’s real-life behaviors. Such dynamics become further complicated as media technologies rapidly advance in the current era, when human communications and interactions are pushed to be digitized. In particular, the concept of virtual reality has been frequently juxtaposed with authentic reality for comparison. This project, hence, mediates co-presence between virtual and reality with dynamic visuals and provokes introspection on its mutual influence in a more sensual manner.
The project consists of an installation with four laptops for interaction, four headphones and a projection displaying project context and instruction. Each laptop displays one distinct yet interconnected virtual world, symbolizing the diverse, subjective perceptions individuals hold of the same world. Up to four participants can engage with one another simultaneously, embodied as intangible lights of random colors that illuminate their respective black-and-white virtual environments. To facilitate navigation, webcams on each laptop tracts participants’ eye and shoulder positions, enabling a first-person perspective movement encompassing upward, downward, leftward and rightward directions. As participants get close to each other virtually, auditory and lighting effects will be triggered, highlighting the mutual influence and subsequent impact on their individual characteristics. Speaking of the installation, one mirror covers the laptop keyboards at the bottom, and another covers screens from the top. Through such design, an infinite reflection of the laptop screens is generated, therefore extending the laptop screens meanwhile manipulating the boundary between virtual and reality not only conceptually but also physically.
The sharp comparison between vibrant colors and infinite black-and-white imagery shifts the perception of co-presence from a physical sensation to a sensory vision, thereby reinforcing the audience’s awareness of others being present. As participants approach each other virtually, their light intensities fluctuate rhythmically. The longer they remain in close proximity, the more frequently they flicker. By highlighting such mutual influence of people casting on each other, whether consciously or not, the project re-emphasizes the real-life impact of co-presence in a more sensual way, at the same time encouraging deeper reflections within mediated virtual reality.