Special Exhibition: Empathy and Embodiment in Virtual Reality

This special exhibition features virtual reality projects that exploit the unique potential of Virtual Reality to elicit presence and empathy through immersion, and experiment with embodiment.

The projects include artistic and experimental works created by international scholars and artists, as well as students from the Digital Media Track at Tel-Aviv University and the Reichman University Advanced Reality Lab.

This open event is part of the Empathies, Brains and the Moving Image, a research workshop supported by the Israel Science Foundation.

Agenda

14:30  – 15:00

A commercial demo by AR 51 – a real-time markerless full-body tracking for VR experiments with multiple participants.

15:00 – 17:15 – Main exhibition
  • Esen Küçüktütüncü (Universitat de Barcelona) will present VR content designed to study conflict resolution.
  • Ron Shalev, Once Upon a Dream – A VR experience where the user embodies a father who is forced to enter into his daughter’s dream in order to wake her up. In her dream, he is exposed to memories revealing what led her to coma. Was shortlisted for the 2022 Yugo BAFTA Awards
  • Nofar Laor, Experience Alzheimer’s – A VR experience that illustrates the perception of reality by Alzheimer’s patients.
  • Ronit Elyoseph, Advanced Reality Lab, Can Old Age Become a Nonissue? The effect of affective valence of the virtual body on ageism reduction.
  • Maya Shekel, Advanced Reality Lab, A Virtual Patient for Mental Health – Increasing resilience and preventing suicide: training and interventions with a distressed virtual human in VR.
  • Alon Shoa, Advanced Reality Lab, A GPT walks into a Bar – A social VR interaction with LLM-based virtual humans. Winner of the IVA 2022 GALA awards.
17:15 – 17:45 – Artist talk

Loukia Alavanou. A special lecture by the artist Loukia Alavanou who will present a short preview excerpt from the 360° film On the way to Colonus (2021) featured at the Venice Biennale. Loukia Alavanou’s exhibition, Green Room, will be hosted by The Open University of Israel.