Into the Womb -I want to be born again-

Session SIGGRAPH Asia 2024, Extended Reality (XR), Tokyo, Japan
Description
Into the Womb” is an XR content with a simulated experience of being born again. The author who has a developmental disability expresses her hope that if she could be reborn without her disorder, she would feel universal love. The work raises social issues about women with developmental disabilities, who have lost love, which is the most important human emotion, due to trauma.

The protagonist, who suffers from a developmental disability at the beginning, is verbally tricked by people and expresses her difficulty in living, having been traumatized by love and other things. The story begins with a scene of the world from the perspective of a girl with developmental disabilities in a night city called Kabuki-cho in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Participants will see the transition from the dark night city back into the womb of their mothers, experiencing a simulated escape from a society filled with contradictions. They can hear the mother’s words and the encouraging words around them, which confirm their love. Then, they realize that they are being born again by moving their hands inside the womb to be born again. In the end, they assimilate with the fetus and are enveloped in light, and they are born again and ‘alive’ in the world. When they finish the experience and remove the headset, they feel a world full of hope after they have been born again.

This work aims to help people feel free from trauma and have heart-warming feelings by going through a simulated experience of being born again.

Contributors
Shoko Kimura, Aoyama Gakuin UniversityNagoya Institute of Technology
Ayaka Fujii, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST)
Kenichi Ito, Diver-X Inc.
Rihito Tsuboi, Game Sound Creator
Yoshinori Natsume, Nagoya Institute of Technology