The Autonomous Machine

Our most recent development (2021). The system enables two persons to swap their bodies with each other in real-time. It works like The Machine To Be Another but functions without the two assistants guiding and facilitating the experience for users. Participants are on their own, The Machine becomes the facilitator. An exploration of where else we could take the blurring of boundaries between Self and Other.

The installation is particularly attractive as a long-term or permanent exhibit in an institutional context. The premiere of The Autonomous Machine was at the exhibition Planet Digital at the Museum für Gestaltung, Zürich (11/02 – 06/06/2022). 

Autonomous Body Swaps @ Permanent or Long-Term Exhibitions

The Autonomous Machine facilitates Body Swaps between two persons without the need for facilitators, making the installation perfectly suited for exhibition contexts such as museums, where it can operate seamlessly all day without much guidance by staff.

Visitors can engage in a captivating journey guided solely by advanced automation. They encounter interactive protocols designed for profound exploration of identity and empathy based on current neuroscientific research. Through integrated mirrors and artefacts, the Autonomous Body Swap triggers diverse perceptions, enabling a new sense of embodiment and an altered sense of self.

Within this immersive environment, visitors can actively engage with their immediate surrounding and experience embodiment and proprioception in novel ways. Witness yourself from a third-person perspective, a unique shift in standpoint. The experience blends playfulness, joy, and contemplation and is an invitation to further the dialogue of our boundary setting between Self and Other.