VR Installation | 2018

The erosion of real human interactions, media overstimulation and the insidious growth of apathy characterize life in urban environments. Increasingly humans are making sense of their world through media fed thin-slice exposures and mediated versions of ourselves, creating a mental gap between self and others.

What would happen if our eyes met that of a stranger? Would it create a real human connection? Could it lead to the thawing of the sense of “otherness”?

Is technology dehumanizing us? Can it not?

We Are is a Virtual Reality (VR) art installation that examines these questions.

Outwardly the installation resembles a VR gaming booth but the actual experience points toward its antithesis.

The viewer is invited to takes a seat, wear a VR headset and start the ‘program’. Instead of a simulated video game environment, the viewer meets the ‘projection’ of the artist sitting opposite, in a quiet, friendly gaze. The artist ‘interacts’ with the viewer through the universal language of gesture and with computer generated visuals. To heighten the sensory experience, the visuals are supported by custom designed sound that the viewer can hear and feel through a device (HUMU Augmented Audio Cushion) attached to the chair.

As the simulation progresses, the phrase “We are Human” appears and culminates in a ‘reaching out to touch’ gesture in the hope of eliciting an equal emotional response from the viewer.

Created in collaboration with visual artist Patrick Lichty and commissioned by Dubai Culture for the Sikka Art Fair 2018, We Are is a deeply immersive experience and an attempt at finding the human thread that unites us.

“In 2010, Marina Abramovic created an extended performance called The Artist is Present, where she locked eyes with strangers. I found that work very moving. I have always believed that meeting another’s gaze has the power to thaw our sense of otherness. Yet more and more, we avoid eye contact. Our eyes engage with and escape into all kinds of screens. So is technology connecting or disconnecting us? “We Are” was an experiment using high-end technology to make a real human connection. Through “We Are”, I wanted to force the viewer to disconnect from everything for 3 mins 4 secs and just look into the eyes of a stranger and see what happens. You can never photograph “We Are” with your smart phones, you can only experience it in your head.”