The Box

MATT SATCHWILL, LOGAN GILMOUR, CHRIS SZOTT, KELSEY PRUD’HOMME, JESSICA HONG

The Box is a virtual reality experienced that rejects typical video game design constraints, such as a life-and-death cycle and combative violence. The player is invited to enter a solitary room, where they surrender their senses of sight and hearing in exchange for counterfeits. The player is asked to observe these ersatz senses, and the oddly compelling and tangible reality they create. The player interacts with the crowded interior space at will, but will find that their own limbs have been replaced with digital duplicates and that sounds are not what they expect.

It has been a long-standing objective of meditative practice to allow one's mind to temporarily reject the sensual world as an illusion concocted by the human brain. The illusion is made more obvious after being tampered with.

The soundtrack to this experience has been intentionally designed to compliment the already sensory-depriving visuals. Several layers of subtle audio, separated at specific frequency-bands, infiltrate the player's auditory complex using a technique called Binaural Beats. By playing two differing sinusoidal wavelengths – one in each ear – to induce a 7hz pulse, the artists hope to induce a meditative state.

Left: The outside of The Box was covered in mysterious pseudo-sciencey text and images that were in part generated by a machine learning algorithm. The images were then screen printed onto kraft paper and wheat pasted onto The Box. Some light reading while you wait.
Right: Once inside The Box users are greeted by the glowing eyes of an Oculus Rift and some simple instructions on how to begin the experience. Once you have the headphones on a voice will guide you on your journey.