Identity is an eternal topic for humans, and people often discuss what can represent our identity. However, in today's digital age, the concept of human identity is undergoing a revolutionary change. We imagine that in the future virtual world, digital identity will become an important part of human identity. As a fundamental component of contemporary experience, digital technology has become a key element in reimagining the body. The digitised body symbolises the extension, abstraction, and reconstruction of the body in the virtual world, often dominated by human thought. However, what constitutes the body? How can the digital body represent the uniqueness of human identity? How is the construction of the digital body selected? These questions have become the topic of discussion for our AcrossRCA team.
In our project, we mainly explore digital identity based on the future virtual world. Our team consists of five students from different professional backgrounds, aiming to explore the essence of the digital body, its construction methods and its impact on human identity through multi-perspective and multi-level research methods. Our project starts from both theoretical and practical aspects, exploring the importance and implementation of the digital body in the virtual world through a combination of theoretical research and experimental design.
Through this research, we hope to have a deeper understanding of the future development trend of digital identity and its role in human identity. Our research results are expected to provide new ideas and methods for the construction and development of future digital identities.
Our inspiration comes from science fiction movies that explore the idea of human identity in virtual worlds. These movies often use the mind to represent a person's consciousness in a digital realm. For instance, in "The Upload," technology allows a person's mind and memories to be uploaded to a digital world after they die. Like these works, most people believe that mind represents oneself, and the body is merely a vessel for survival. When discussing the possibility of uploading humans to a virtual world to achieve immortality, people often choose to have the existence of their minds represent the continuation of their lives.
This has led us to think about the inherent biases in this tendency. We believe that this bias stems partly from people equating memory with the mind and partly from overlooking the importance of other factors that can represent human identity. In a virtual world, can a "digital body" alone, as a continuation of human existence, truly represent a person's identity? This stereotype prompts us to reflect and continue to explore the definition of digital identity and philosophical questions that can represent human identity, critically examining the future construction of human digital identity. The theory of psychophysical parallelism affirms the correlation between psychological and physical events, providing us with a topic to discuss.
Therefore, we attempted to upload the constituents of our material into code form into the virtual world. Through research, our idea gained some theoretical support. Nobel laureate Burnett introduced the concept of "biological identity," which inspired us. In fact, the visual representation of our bodies in the real world mostly lies on the surface of our skin, tissues, and organs. There are many materials that can represent our identity, such as neurons, fingerprints, physiology, etc.
At the same time, we also raised critical questions about our ideas. When we upload our biological features to the virtual world, can we continue to exist in our form in the virtual world? Does our mind still exist, or will it exist in a new form? If it is a new mind, can it still represent our identity? When we create our digital body by converting data and reconstruct our biometric identity in the virtual world, what is the only thing that can represent our identity? Does the digital body in the virtual world represent us? Is it possible to create a continuous biometric identity?
To this end, we conducted further research. Physical biometric recognition technology indicates that DNA has a unique sequence. By creating a DNA profile from a DNA sample, a person's unique identity can be determined.
Among the many typical characteristics of bodies and minds, we have ultimately selected fingerprint, voice, and gait as the three basic product forms based on the difficulty of technical implementation and typical features. In the future, users will be able to generate their exclusive digital identity by interacting with these basic forms and uploading them to virtual world platforms.
The artwork "Eyes" by artist Yoon Chung Han provided us with inspiration for our approach. "Eyes" is an interactive art installation and a part of a series of biometric data artworks called "Digiti Sonus". This interactive biometric data art can convert human iris data into music sounds and 3D animation images. The idea is to allow the audience to explore their own identity through the unique visual and auditory experiences generated by iris patterns using iris recognition and image processing technology.
Our outcomes are divided into three parts: visual arts, interaction devices, and event posters. In the end, we used three TVs to exhibit our work in an exhibition format, with each interactive device able to be experienced separately. The interactive processes became an integral part of our work. For sound design, we used a sound sensor and combined the sound with the intention of a bamboo water container in our design. For fingerprints, we thought of the feeling of fingertips touching the surface of a lake and named it "Ripple." For gait, we were inspired by the cracks in the earth's crust, creating a feeling of stepping into a crack and placing cameras to record the user's gait, providing real-time artistic visual feedback during the audience's experience.
Our group consists of five students from four different academic backgrounds, including Liu Chao and Shan Yajie from Digital Direction, Ye Xiaoyi from Design Product, Zhao Youyang from Jewellery and Metal, and myself from Information Experience Design. During the research process, we put a lot of emphasis on communication and exchange. We have created a mural website on which we can collaborate on research at the same time. We also maintain more than one meeting per week to minimise the information gap between members and revised the current research after each meeting with the tutor and other groups, based on the feedback we receive from everyone. During the production process, we paid great attention to utilising the advantages of each member's professional background, rational division of labour and collaboration. We divided into two groups: one being the hand making group, consisting of Xiaoyi and Youyang, working on physical devices that encase Arduino in Battersea campus. The other is the digital group, working in the White City campus, mainly responsible for producing digital media visual images, designing interactive programming, and creating peripheral posters and manuals. My group, the digital group, was responsible for abstracting the fingerprint's features and designing its dynamic visual images, which we created using Touch Designer. Our group leader combined the digital images we created with Arduino to form an interactive system. Finally, we rented a classroom on the White City campus and put all the outcomes together for the exhibition, then invited students to participate in the interaction, filming and recording midway through. I edited the footage together to form the final film. The other members worked together to put together a PowerPoint presentation on the entire process from inspiration to research to outcomes.
In this collaborative project, I believe that the shining point of our project is innovation and breakthroughs. On the one hand, we broke through traditional disciplinary boundaries by linking digital technology with biology. On the other, we emphasised speculation when contemplating the future and broke through traditional cognition and definitions. We not only focused on the development of future technologies but also contemplated the possibilities of future human life, exploring the potential changes in future societies, cultures, and values. Our thinking is not limited by stereotypes, and we have innovative ideas and practices that have taken our project to new heights. In addition, we have no limitations on media. Our team members collaborate seamlessly, utilising each profession's strengths to combine digital art, physical installations, programming, sculpture, and products to create diverse outcomes. From the start of the project team, there has been close contact and communication between members, with ideas being shared enthusiastically and the courage to question other members. We also plan well and know how to adapt in order to complete projects more smoothly.
One of the aspects in which our project was not successful is that we lacked the opportunity to have direct dialogue with experts in the field of biology. The key to this problem is that uploading human physical characteristics to the digital world requires a lot of knowledge and skills in biology, such as anatomy, physiology, and pathology. Without the opportunity to directly communicate with experts in the field of biology, the project may remain at the conceptual and imaginative level, lacking practical feasibility and operability. We also face major challenges related to ethical and legal issues. With the development and application of physical identity uploading technology, a large amount of personal data is collected, stored, and analyzed, which involves how to protect the privacy and security of this personal data. In addition, it is necessary to consider security issues such as how to prevent hacking and malicious attacks. Another issue to consider is how to ensure that physical identity technology does not cause inequality among special groups. For example, certain biological features may lead to discrimination and unfair results. Therefore, corresponding ethical guidelines and legal regulations need to be developed to ensure the fairness of this technology. In addition, it is also necessary to consider how to provide better services and support for disabled people and other special groups. For example, for blind or hearing-impaired people, how to provide them with more accessible solutions without causing other disadvantages. We also faced some challenges in technology. Initially, our project intended to create a VR virtual space to place our users' digital biometric data, but due to limited technology and time, this goal was not achieved.
In addition, we value feedback from the audience and ethical issues related to the project. We invited volunteers to participate in the evaluation process and actively collected feedback. Whether the audience can participate, immerse themselves, understand the content of the presentation clearly, give feedback, and engage in reflection are important factors for us to measure the success of the project. We mainly used a combination of questionnaires, observations, and interviews.
In this AcrossRCA collaboration project, I felt the power of teamwork and realised that working together can achieve greater results. At the same time AcrossRCA places great importance on communication with other groups and often provides feedback for others, which makes our projects more accessible to a wider audience. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, I was introduced to fields that I had not previously encountered, such as Arduino and Touch Designer, which enriched my skills and knowledge. This allowed me to be less restricted by the medium in my future creations. As my background is in public sculpture, I am lacking in a rigorous design research mindset. Through this collaboration, I gained a more profound and multidimensional understanding of project research and learned how to conduct scientific and systematic research to better understand target audiences and market demand. I also recognised the importance of audience interaction and feedback, which can help me better understand their needs and improve their experience through continuous improvement and optimisation. In my future personal projects, I will prioritise the audience's feelings and feedback to provide a better user experience. Through this collaboration project, I also learned how to communicate and collaborate with team members and better coordinate various aspects of the work. I also learned how to remain calm under pressure, be flexible in addressing problems and solve difficulties. These skills will contribute to my future career development and personal growth.
