"Is This My Body?", is an Interactive Extended Reality (XR) Theater prototype that combines virtual reality with physical props and tactile interactions. The project is a practice-based research on the subjects of embodiment (the sense that the virtual body is our own body) and body ownership in the virtual space. Taking under account both the perspectives of the users-participants as well as the performers-participants, it engages them to re-evaluate the connection and perception of their physical and virtual body-bodies. 

In an era that gallops towards introducing the Metaverse into our daily lives, there is the need to contemplate, clarify, review and redefine materiality and the way it can co-exist with the virtual environment.“Is This My Body?” takes a more philosophical and human-centric approach on the aforementioned subjects, of embodiment and body ownership, drawing inspiration from psychoanalytic theories, especially systemic psychotherapy, and the neuroscience experiments held by Mel Slater, that examine the effects of virtual avatar and synchronized body motion in VR on the human brain and consciousness. By incorporating physical and tactile elements into the experience, it uses vision, hearing, touch and kinaesthesia to consciously facilitate and augment the sense of embodiment in VR. In this way, the prototype creates more realistic conditions to explore the effects of embodiment and disembodiment, raising issues of trust, control and body ownership. 

For the realization of the project, two performers “donated” their bodies to be 3D scanned, using photogrammetry, and taken physical casts of their torsos. The two performers were then invited to experience the project, interact with their virtual bodies and be interviewed about how they felt seeing and interacting with their scanned bodies in VR, how they felt watching strangers interacting with their virtual bodies, and whether or not they felt connected with the virtual versions of their bodies. 

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The experience can be also used for therapeutic purposes. After discussing with a physiotherapist, it was pointed out that “Is This My Body?” could be used as a psychotherapy tool along the lines of the “systemic constellations” method of Bert Hellinger, facilitating the patients to address, dramatize and reenact a situation. The experience could be proven extremely useful especially when the identified patient wants to work trust and control issues. The sense of embodiment that the experience builds up and the very break of this sense, would enable patients to both relieve a significant situation and observe themselves from a distance, rationalizing their emotions at that moment.

“Is This My Body?” combines virtual reality with hand and body tracking technologies, so that participants can see their hands and use them to interact with the environment around them through touch while in VR. In addition, the project includes an in-experience performer wearing a motion capture suit in order for participants to see and interact with the performer’s body in both the virtual and real space. 
 

Organization Description
“Is This My Body?” was supported by Metalogues, a program of the Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki conducted in cooperation with Malvi creative agency, supported by the Academy of International Extended Reality and TIF-Helexpo, and funded by the German Federal Foreign Office. “Is This My Body?” was among the four projects shortlisted to be founded by Metalogues and presented in the BEYOND Innovation Expo in Thessaloniki, Greece, which was held between 29/09/2022 and 01/10/2022.

“Is This My Body?” was created in collaboration with the French Extended Realities company, EL-GABAL, and its founder Antoine Cardon. The performers that donated their bodies are members of the AlmaKalma International Research Laboratory of Performing Arts in Thessaloniki, Greece, while for the 3D scan and physical cast of their bodies we collaborated with the IMAGE NATION STUDIOS in Thessaloniki. Last but not least, for the experience’s presentation needs, specialized technical equipment was provided in-kind by the British artist, Mat Collishaw.