While the quality and ubiquity of audio-visual telepresence increased over the last two decades, so did, paradoxically, air travel and personal mobility to attend meetings, conferences, gatherings, and exhibitions. When global mobility was suspended by the harsh effort to control a pandemic, everyone’s attention was suddenly on the status and potential of telepresence echnologies—and the question of how much of our old kind of mobility we should strive to regain, considering its impact on our health and our planet. What parts of physical presence could
telepresence replace in the future, and what new abilities could it add? What incentives will it need for its benefits to outweigh the perks of physical travel, and in which cases? In the Ars Electronica Futurelab, we want to foster discussion about this, and create prototypes with promising technologies.
One device that offers an interesting form of abstracted embodiment is the Double 3 robot, a product that allows the user to navigate a remote environment with a kind of tablet on a pole; a video-conferencing call on the tablet display connects the two spaces in sight and sound. Beyond its original one-to-one use, its open architecture inspired us to start experimenting with potential remote experiences such as robot-based group visits or semi-automated streaming tours. Do not be surprised if the Double 3 joins physical visitors and video conferences at the Ars Electronica Festival 2020 in one way or another.
Project Credits:
- Ars Electronica Futurelab: Peter Holzkorn
