Step into the seeing machine and help the computer see, using your hands as eyes and trying to translate the felt sensations into difficult decisions posed by the seeing machine. Answer the questions of the computer to your best abilities to help it understand. Is the machine’s image a match to what you pictured in your mind? Be The Seeing Machine is a critical statement piece, in the form of an interactive VR installation that offers the user a thought-provoking experience of computer vision algorithms and the systems of classification they are built upon.
Project Date
2019
Team Size
3 people
Resources
Oculus Rift S * Casting and molding supplies * Alienware Laptop * Unity Engine
Responsibilities
Concept * Design & Programming Interaction * Production
How can we explore and make tangible the workings and limits of computer vision algorithms?
Be the seeing machine is a critical piece, created during a semester abroad in Amsterdam 2019. It started out as a research project which was worked on in collaboration with the Digital Society School in Amsterdam during the Minor Makers Lab program at the HVA, Hogeschool van Amsterdam.
We researched common problems with bias in algorithms and incorporated these problems in our everyday live in an interactive installation. We worked on multiple questions concerning the use and misuse of algorithmic intelligence. The product of our research is an interdisciplinary installation which combines the sensation of haptic experience and feedback with the extended visual reality created through VR.
The whole production process is documented in the research zine below: