VR Simulator Lets You Experience ‘Death’ As Doctors Try To Revive You
Guests might be able to brush shoulders with the Grim Reaper a little earlier than they’re destined to at a virtual-reality exhibit that simulates one’s dying moments.
If you’re not ready for this headset that literally kills you when you die in a game, then a safer, “out-of-body” experience will likely be more comforting for you—though that’s not to say you won’t be unsettled still. At the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australian contemporary artist Shaun Gladwell has envisioned what it’s like to be on your deathbed through an “extended-reality” (XR) show putting visitors through the stages of “cardiac arrest to brain death.”
The participatory experience, entitled Passing Electrical Storms, is both “meditative and unsettling”—as described by the gallery—and it replicates the end of life through simulations of “medical technologies.” The process is supported by the Deakin Motion Lab at Deakin University.
Participants meet their self-administered fate by lying down on hospital beds, where they are hooked up to large computers mimicking heart rate monitors.
As explained by visitor Marcus Crook—co-founder of a nonprofit streetwear label dedicated to supporting youths affected by homelessness—the hospital beds vibrate, and that’s when you “flatline” from a heart attack. This triggers a scenario where doctors rush over and try to resuscitate you.
@croom12 Its Actually pretty hectic. Doctors trying to revive you, vibrating bed and floating into space.
♬ original sound - Marcus
But death is inescapable, and the patient sees themself float away from their earthly tethers and into the unknown.
Understandably, the visceral experience may be too much for some, in which case visitors can step out if they’re too uncomfortable.
In spite of the bleak themes, Passing Electrical Storms might be the wake-up call some are looking for. Gladwell shares in an interview with The Australian (via the New York Post) that bringing participants to the final minutes of life prompts them to meditate on the “ephemerality” of existence. In the artist’s view, it’s not all black and white, “but a spectrum of colors and moods.”
[via New York Post and NDTV, cover photo 105261799 © Sabphoto | Dreamstime.com]
