Beanotherlab's project 'The Machine to Be Another' is an interactive performance installation that immerses users in the life stories of others, promoting empathy and understanding through a virtual reality experience. It includes various experiments such as gender swap, embodied narratives, and applications in healthcare, showcasing potential for conflict resolution and rehabilitation. The collaborative effort involves interdisciplinary researchers and artists across multiple institutions, focusing on identity and empathy in diverse contexts.

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“…an Open Source Art investigation on the relation of Identity and
Empathy” (BeAnotherLab, 2015).
By Bria Holness

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The Machine is an interactive performance installation that allows users to
experience a piece of another person’s life story by seeing themselves in the
body of this person and listening to his/her thoughts as they undergo the
experience (BeAnotherLab, 2015).

5. The Experience
• User - Person exploring an environment through the virtual body of the
performer
• Performer - Person who is interested in sharing a story about his or her
existence. He or she is the replacement to the “dummy” or “virtual body”
whose role is to reproduce the movements of the user as accurately as
possible
• Through immersive goggles (head mounted displays) the user sees a video
with the perspective of the performer, who follows the user’s movements
(BeAnotherLab, 2015).

6. The Experience
• 2 identical spaces
• The performer holds a first person camera capturing his or her point of view
• The performer also wears a microphone used to tell a short story about his/her
existence.
• Through head mounted displays the user can move and interact with objects
inside a room, while listening to the performer‘s thoughts through headphones.
• The system provides a real tactile sensation instead of haptic devices. It also
allows detailed gestures, such as finger movement.
• Although performers tend to have a delay in copying the movements of users,
the head tracking controls the camera in real time. Users tend to accept the
delay and move slowly in order to achieve a better control of the movements
(BeAnotherLab, 2015).

8. The Machine is a low budget Creative
Commons technology based on papers
published on the Web for researchers on
Embodiment, from institutions such as Group
Ehrsson from Karolinska Institutet, in Stockholm,
and Event Lab, in Barcelona (BeAnotherLab,
2015).
“One of the main motivations for our work is building communities that contribute to the
construction of new knowledge. This is why most of our work is licensed under a Creative
Commons Non-commercial Share Alike License. Our work can be replicated as long as it is
for non-commercial uses” (BeAnotherLab, 2015).

9. Collaborators include:
• ACT at School of Architecture &
Planning
• Fab Lab Barcelona
• Mindset
• University Pompeu Fabra
(BeAnotherLab, 2015).
BeAnotherLab is collaborating with experimental psychologists and neurologists to develop
uses of ‘the machine’ as a low-budget rehabilitation system, and also as an immersive role
playing system.

10. The system was developed with the support of the Media lab, Hangar, and
the Univeristat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona with the interdisciplinary orientation
of the Grid Spinoza project.
Grid Spinoza project started in 2010 with the objective exploring the processes,
methodologies and dynamics of artistic and scientific research and the ways of
transferring knowledge from one field to the other.
Project was tested as a social application in a series of experiments and
performances involving people from local community (BeAnotherLab, 2015).

11. • The Lab maińs work is TheMachineToBeAnother (TMBA): an Embodiment Virtual System
that allows individuals to experience the world through the eyes and body of another.
• Long term research on how to promote empathy among individuals of different social,
cultural and ideological contexts has been used to address issues like cultural bias,
immigration, generational bonding, conflict resolution and body extension.
• Aim to have implications in fields like education, psychology, healthcare and conflict
resolution.
• Main variations of the system:
• EMBODIED NARRATIVES SYSTEM
• GENDER SWAP EXPERIMENT
• EMBODIED DANCE EXPERIMENT
• BODY EXTENSION EXPERIMENT
• PAIN TOLERANCE EXPERIMENT
• ARTISTIC RESEARCH ON EMPATHY (BeAnotherLab, 2015).

12. EMBODIED NARRATIVES:
A performer shares a piece of their story (narrative) with the user through the use of first person
camera and headphones. User is able to feel as if they are in another person’s shoes
(BeAnotherLab, 2015).
“I am no longer Aaron Souppouris. I am a woman. I am a stranger. I stare down at the mask I hold in
my hands, struggling to comprehend how those hands, which are clearly not mine, are allowing me
to feel its curves and cracks. As I glance at the mirror in front of me, my new lip piercing glimmers
under the harsh fluorescent lights. This is not a fever dream, not a hallucination, not even a video
game. This is The Machine To be Another.” - Aaron Souppouris

13. GENDER SWAP EXPERIMENT:
Interaction system to promote mutual respect and understanding between
different gender identities by allowing both users to see themselves as the
other. The system works as a research platform of gender and queer
theories as well as a therapeutic experience.
It is a lot like mirroring one another so users build a non-linguistic dialogue
based on mutual agreement in which their movement aligns to make it the
most authentic experience (BeAnotherLab, 2015).

14. GENDER SWAP EXPERIMENT continued:
Different multi-sensory feedback including mirrors to reinforce the illusion
It’s not mandatory for participants to be stripped down in underwear
although for the illusion to work, the users have to be dressed similarly
(BeAnotherLab, 2015).

15. EMBODIED DANCE EXPERIMENT
- Users are invited to see
themselves in the body of a
contemporary dancer and to
synchronize their movements with
the dancers´ movements.
BODY EXTENSION EXPERIMENT
- Uses Virtual Reality Embodiment
experiments to allow physically
challenged dancer to see herself
dancing standing up. The project
is part of a broader investigation
on the use of 'The Machine' as a
Low budget rehabilitation system
(BeAnotherLab, 2015).

17. PAIN TOLERANCE EXPERIMENT
Discovery Channel's The Daily
Planet filmed some experiments
TMBA was doing in Barcelona on a
possible application of the machine
in healthcare. VR therapy for pain
tolerance has been used in
hospitals for severe burn victims,
and they are trying to figure out
whether if their system could have
similar uses.
ARTISTIC EMPATHY EXPERIMENT:
Interdisciplinary qualitative
investigation to stimulate empathy
through embodied interaction
between individuals. Applications
for conflict resolution for individual
and identity based conflicts
(BeAnotherLab, 2015).

18. ARTISTIC EMPATHY EXPERIMENT:
Immigrant empathy
Functional diversity exchange in
which user is able to see
themselves as someone in a
wheelchair (BeAnotherLab, 2015).

19. Who is doing this work?
“BeAnotherLab is composed by an anti-disciplinary group of artists, researchers and
activists that bring a wide view on the topics of subjective experience, identity and
empathy; attempting to open our understanding of the self and it’s relation to the other.
We are a family of multicultural agents surrounded by a wide community of
collaborators…” (2015).
BeAnotherLab is currently composed by 8-9 full-time investigators along with a number
of associates and collaborators.
Backgrounds:
• Cognitive System
• Interactive System Design,
• Digital Arts, Computer Sciences
• Social Communication
• Anthropology
• Philosophy
• Conflict Resolution.
There are also associates who partake in part-time, period-based research and
development (BeAnotherLab, 2015).

20. Who is doing this work?
Investigators include
Interactive system designer
PhD student in social anthropology
Anthropologist/massage therapist
Electronic explorer interested in visual & sound interactive art
The lab also has a group of associates who partake in part-time, period-based
research and development (BeAnotherLab, 2015).

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“This multidisciplinary artistic investigation plans to use the recent neuroscience approach of ‘embodiment’
and apply it to investigate the perception and comprehension about the Self based on the comprehension of
the ‘Other’” (BeAnotherLab, 2015).
Official reproductions of The Machine To Be Another
• BeAnotherLab, Barcelona
• BeAnotherLab, Mexico City
• Lacuna Lab, Berlin
• Berlin School of Brain and Mind, Berlin
• McGill University, Montreal (BeAnotherLab, 2015).