Doppelgänger is a multiuser mixed reality experience that let’s the participants confront their own, computer generated 3D double in the real surrounding. While co-present with other participants, they are also co-present with their own double while keeping it very personal and intimate to engage participants in interacting with their ‘mirror image’. While the participants get the feeling to be in control over their ‘mirror image’, this changes rapidly after a short time and the double, now free from the strings of its original, starts to invade the participants personal space, leading to a disturbing and perhaps even a bit uncanny play between the two of them.
Before the experience begins, a frontal 2D image of the participants is taken and quickly transformed into an animated 3D reconstruction with Nevo (Neural Volumetric Capture), a software developed at the IAS. After this ‘set up’ process, the participants put on the XR head mounted display and the experience starts. When they put on the headset, they see the real environment captured by a camera on the headset, but in this familiar space they see their double in front of them. The experience has a fixed duration and is interactive, combined with a dramaturgy that is divided into three main parts.
Credits:
Artists: Chris Elvis Leisi, Christopher Salter
Machine Learning (NEVO): Florian Bruggisser
Sound: Pascal Lund-Jensen
Produced by: Immersive Arts Space – Zurich University of the Arts