Man Wants To Live As Somebody Else For 28 Days Using Virtual Reality Headset

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A British performance artist, Mark Farid wants to spend a month living as another person,  therefore, he has set up a Kickstarter campaign to help him fund the project which he called “Seeing-I”, and if he’s successful in collecting the $235,000 meant for the project, he plans to wear a virtual reality headset through which he would experience life through another person’s eyes and ears for up to 28 days. OddityCentral has the rest:

According to the campaign page, “For 24 hours a day for 28 days, artist Mark Farid will wear a Virtual Reality Headset through which he will experience life through another person’s eyes and ears – this person will be referred to as ‘the Other’. Mark has had no previous relationship with this person; he is only aware that the Other is a heterosexual male, who is in a relationship. The Other is required to wear a pair of glasses that covertly capture audio and video. This footage will then be watched back by Mark, who will inhabit a space consisting of only a bed, a toilet and shower area. This area, as well as Mark will be on constant display to the audience.”

So whatever the Other experiences in life, Mark will too – like being stuck in a doctor’s waiting room for hours, partying on a weekend, and even going to the loo, of course. The only human contact that Mark will have is one hour per day with a psychologist, who will observe and listen to him without saying a word.

Seeing-I is such a bizarre project that it could leave Mark mentally altered for life, a fact that he’s perfectly aware of. Yet, he’s still willing to go through with it, because he wants answers to a debate that he believes has raged on through human history – Nature or Nurture. He wants to know if we humans are pre-programmed by our genes to behave in a certain way, or if our environment inspires us to be who we are.

“It’s to see if who we are is an individual identity, or if there is just a cultural identity that kind of takes us on,” Mark explained. “I’ve grown up in the city my whole life. So everything that I’ve seen – the square gardens that we have, the tree that’s planted in that specific place, the way the wind travels down the road, all of that is artificially created. Every experience that we’re having is synthetic.” He also revealed that the project is inspired by his readings in philosophy and the works of Josh Harris, an internet entrepreneur who was fascinated with total, 24-hour surveillance.