Janhavi Amit Koparkar

Inhabiting Otherwise: A VR Experience of the Non-Human City

There is a pigeon outside right now. You have probably already ignored it. That pigeon is reading a completely different city. It sees in ultraviolet. It feels the hostility of every spike, every sloped ledge, every surface that was quietly redesigned so it would have nowhere left to land. The city has been sending it a message for years. The message is not welcome here. Somewhere nearby a squirrel is doing what it does every day. Moving through a vertical world where trees are the roads and roads are the danger. Remembering things. Thousands of things. Exactly where they are buried. Exactly how to get back. Underneath the pavement something is moving without eyes. Feeling footsteps from above as slow heavy tremors. Feeling rain arriving through the soil before it reaches the surface. Navigating a world made entirely of pressure and signal and dark. Inhabiting Otherwise is a virtual reality installation. You put on the headset. You step into its world. The same streets. The same buildings. The same city you have walked through your whole life. Transformed completely by the simple fact of being in a different body. The pigeon experience stretches your vision almost all the way around your head. The squirrel experience makes the ground feel far away and dangerous. The worm experience turns the screen completely dark. What remains is vibration and sound and the strange sensation of a city you cannot see. These creatures have been here the whole time. Living alongside you. Experiencing something you have never once considered. This is an invitation to consider it.