Body of Mine seeks to promote transgender empathy by demonstrating gender dysphoria in VR, and that's available today on Quest.
Created by Kost, Body of Mine is a full-body VR experience that places you into a body of the opposite gender, recounting interviews from the transgender community by moving your arms near different body parts. During our Venice Immersive 2023 hands-on, we called it a "heartfelt" and "all-too-necessary" experience.
“Body of Mine was inspired by a desire to see immersive technologies provide a safe space for queer individuals, when a safe space in the real world can feel hard to find, while also fostering a deeper understanding of connections - and disconnections—between the body and mind,” states director Cameron Kostopoulos in a prepared statement.
Previously a location-based installation shown at different festivals, Body of Mine now reaches home platforms to coincide with Pride month. While the SteamVR version requires five HTC Vive Trackers and a high-spec PC, thanks to the development team at Agile Lens, Body of Mine uses "advanced in-headset motion capture" that integrates Meta's full-body synthesis on Quest. It also supports hand tracking and Quest Pro eye tracking.
Body of Mine will also adopt a strategy described as "radical localization" that doesn't use direct translation. "Because gender and dysphoria can be intrinsically linked with sociocultural context, we are crafting new narratives in Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, and Mandarin," the studio confirms in a press release.
As for what's next, Kostopoulos is currently working on their second immersive project, 'A Cure for Straightness.' This upcoming episodic series uses haptics and mixed reality to “simulate conversion therapy for straight people,” telling the story of a transgender survivor of electroshock conversion therapy.
Body of Mine reaches the Meta Quest platform today, and it's also available on Steam.
