Development of emergent person-environment behaviors in Mixed Reality environments, Leading House Japan, 2024/25
This interdisciplinary project is an international collaboration between The Ikegami Lab at the University of Tokyo and Immersive Arts Space. The project aims to study social co-presence (the sense of being with others) in a shared mixed reality (MR) environment, Here, MR is achieved via “video passthrough”– a technique which delivers live video images through tiny cameras in the head mounted display which approximates what one would see if directly looking into the real surrounding world. The project’s aim is to measure how self-organization in this MR space, characterized by changes in information richness and concurrency could affect the sense of co-presence of others inhabiting the same MR space. Self-organization, here defined as emergent structures that evolve without central control and in response to environmental stimuli, will be achieved by creating audio-visual environments through generative AI processes that are controlled in real time by both physiological markers and of non-verbal interaction (interpersonal spatial distance).
‘Leading Houses’ are short term projects intended as start-up funding for international research projects. These are competence networks mandated by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI).
Collaborating Reseachers: Chris Elvis Leisi, Oliver Sahli, Chris Salter