Humphrey II

This installation in the Ars Electronica Center has been a smash hit with visitors ever since the opening of the museum, which has replaced almost all of the “exhibits” on display there at least once over the past eight years. And, indeed, Humphrey will remain aloft in Ars Electronica’s airspace, but his new design will greatly enhance and intensify the experience of flight. Continual improvements in processing capabilities make it possible to generate simulations that get closer and closer to perfection. Virtual reality systems use stereoscopic imagery to produce the illusion of a real, three-dimensional environment. By means of force feedback devices, even physical forces can be mechanically simulated in these virtual worlds.

As the outcome of R&D work in which Ars Electronica Futurelab engineers utilized an empirical design process, Humphrey has mutated into the prototype of an apparatus that uses a combination of virtual reality and force feedback technologies to impart a feeling of weightlessness that is as realistic as possible and of the centrifugal force generated by flying. An aspect that makes a key contribution to this is the innovative mode of navigation, which enables the user to steer through an artificial environment by means of intuitive arm movements.