EN

INTER/her Immersive Experience demo

INTER/her is an intimate VR immersive exploration of the inner world of middle-aged women’s bodies and the post-reproductive diseases they suffer, such as endometriosis, fibroids, polyps, Ovarian and other cysts, cervical, ovarian, uterine and endometrial cancers – with a focus on female health as personal exploration, conversation starter, and community building. The sensory and emotional experience moves from the outside, within a real dome space, into VR space with a spatial audio soundscape of the stories in the voices of real women recounting their experiences of diseases and pain, with accompanying wearable haptic garment providing a visceral vibration responsive experience on the lower abdomen, where the various diseases occur, making it an intimate, emotional and possibly haunting experience. INTER/her is an immersive visual journey and emotional experience, from the inside out within in the bespoke tent space, with accompanying wearable haptic garment providing a visceral vibration responsive experience on the lower abdomen. The tent has a vulva-shaped opening and up to 3 women/visitors can sit on red beanbag chairs on the floor inside and are pre-dressed in the haptic corset, in order to feel the sensations on the lower abdomen triggered by related stories / voices being heard in the 360 interior body space. This demo will be in place of in-person experience – so Camille Baker will do a short artist introduction and then show a video of her putting on the haptic corset a person, explain the controls and guiding them into the physical experience inside the actual tent and then afterward followed by a live screen-casting of the actual VR experience for alive audience and then followed by some pre-recorded video of visitors experiences inside the tent and VR experience. Followed by any Q&A from the audience.

Requirements
If some have an Oculus Quest VR headset at home I can give some participants a limited distribution version of the VR experience – of course not the same as having the actual physical in person experience in the tent and with the corset but to give them a better idea of the work that 2D presentation cannot provide. Please contact the artist at info@inter-her.art to get access to the Oculus Quest 2 .apk

Camille Baker (CDN/GB): Camille Baker is an artist-performer/researcher/curator within various art forms: immersive experiences, participatory performance and interactive art, mobile media art, tech fashion/soft circuits/DIY electronics, responsive interfaces and environments, and emerging media curating. Maker of participatory performance and immersive artwork, Baker develops methods to explore expressive non-verbal modes of communication, extended embodiment and presence in real and mixed reality and interactive art contexts, using XR, haptics/ e-textiles, wearable devices and mobile media. She has an ongoing fascination with all things emotional, embodied, felt, sensed, the visceral, physical, and relational. Her 2018 book New Directions in Mobile Media and Performance showcases exciting approaches and artists in this space, as well as her own work. She has been running a regular meetup group with smart/e-textile artists and designers since 2014, called e-stitches, where participants share their practice and facilitate workshops of new techniques and innovations. Baker also has been Principal Investigator for UCA for the EU funded STARTS Ecosystem (starts.eu) Apr 2019-Nov 2021 and founder initiator for the EU WEAR Sustain project Jan 2017-April 2019 (wearsustain.eu).

Maf’j Alvarez Interaction Designer (GB/SP): Maf’j Alvarez is a Digital media artist and creative technologist living in Brighton, UK, working with ecology, mind, cultural and gender diversity around open access to technology. She also works as a user experience designer working with complex, large scale, digital transformation projects for government services. limbicfish.net