eci n'est pas une pipe: This is Not The Pipe
This is Not The Pipe
Imagine being blindfolded wherever you are. Try sensing the vast emptiness around you. Take a moment in “that” space. Now, imagine an apple. You see it. The familiar apple is now a projectile aimed toward you in “that” vast emptiness. Calculate the trajectory and position yourself to catch it. You catch it, touch it, and you play with it. Remove the blindfold. What if you are still holding the apple in “this” space? What does it make you feel?
“Strange,” remarked Daniel Perlin, a critic at CCAM at the time who caught my hacked HTC tracker despite him being blindfolded with a VR headset (Figure 01).
This is not an Apple.
In 2021, a Yale seminar led by Dana Karwas delved into how we perceive through technology, exploring "mechanical eyes" like satellites and AI.
Simultaneously, Yale's transition to a hybrid model—alternating between online and in-person sessions—mirrored our own toggling between digital and physical realities. This shift wasn't just logistical but deeply transformative, affecting how we interact and even how we feel. The intertwining of digital and physical interactions introduced a new layer of emotional complexity, raising questions about the coexistence of these two realms through the lens of Virtual Reality, which merges them into a singular, yet divided experience.
Could we liberate our hands?
For a Virtual Reality (VR) system to effectively overlay the virtual environment onto your reality, it must first understand its physical surroundings. This is achieved using an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) within the headset, which acts as a form of "eye." The IMU combines accelerometers, gyroscopes, and magnetometers, each operating in three dimensions, to provide comprehensive data on the headset’s position and movement.
Additionally, VR systems often use "Sticky" controllers equipped with infrared LEDs. These LEDs are tracked by cameras on the headset, allowing for the precise triangulation of each controller's position. More advanced setups incorporate base stations that emit IR laser beacons, enhancing the accuracy of this spatial tracking.
While these technologies collaborate to create a seamless virtual experience, they also limit our natural interaction within the VR world. Currently, user movements are translated into the virtual environment through mediated controls, rather than direct physical interaction. This setup makes our natural gestures subordinate to technological interfaces, such as controllers. However, the future potential to extend this sensor technology to include direct interaction with physical objects in our environment could profoundly enhance the immersive experience of VR.
Expanding Virtual Reality (VR) interaction, a game development engine like Unity was used to configure and link everyday objects within a VR environment as interactive controllers.
By integrating HTC controllers with Unity's Input Manager, virtual axes were mapped to create virtual twins for these objects. A notable example involved creating a 3D model of a bicycle tire, closely resembling a real spare tire, and linking it to a digital controller attached to the tire's rim.
This setup allowed for manipulating the virtual tire within the VR space without directly handling the controller, providing a tactile interaction that authentically mimicked the tire’s physical movements.
This experiment demonstrated the feasibility of incorporating multiple physical objects into the VR world, enabling them to interact naturally with our hands.
Inspired by the MoMA's 1997 exhibition "Objects of Desire: The Modern Still Life" by Margit Rowell, the inquiry into the blending of realities prompted the curation of an exhibition where unrelated objects, their words, and the ideas behind them converge across physical and digital domains.
In this virtual realm, everyday items like a wheel, a pipe, and a stool become the subjects of a new kind of still life—ones that exist in both the real and the virtual yet belong entirely to neither. These objects, familiar in form but altered in context, bridge the gap between two worlds.