TODAY I visited the Brakke Grond in Amsterdam. They had a virtual reality exhibition called ‘DocLab: Seamless Reality expo’.
Tijdens de expo Seamless Reality zijn de nieuwste webdocumentaires, virtual reality ervaringen en interactieve installaties te zien. Ook was er een documentaire te zien, maar daar moest je ene kaartje van 7,50 voor kopen. Dat was me iets te duur. Je kon er meer dan 25 installaties bekijken en gebruiken, ik heb er nog geen twee handen vol geprobeerd. In deze installaties worden de grenzen tussen onze fysieke en digitale wereld doorbroken en kan je zelf experimenteren met de mogelijkheden van virtual reality, kunstmatige intelligentie en biometrische technologie. (brakkegrond.nl)
Now you are probably wondering why I used this title though.. Well, one of the installations was quite different from the others. There were two body coolers/morgue refrigerators standing next to each other. One said: JFK and the other Khadaffi. I was instantly excited: what is this!! A woman explained to me that I was supposed to choose between the two. Who’s last four minutes would I like to experience while lying in the corresponding cooler. I chose Khadaffi’s. War, North Africa and the Middle East have always intrigued me because of my fathers job (him working for NATO and all).
It was maybe one of the scariest things I have ever done. Not that the being killed experience it self was so frightening, but I had to push myself to voluntarily climb on that steel bed and then to be pushed into the body cooler, which is as a big as a coffin, and at last hearing a air-tight door closing. I had to laugh the fear away and tell myself that it was just an experience. It was just a game.
I smelled the dessert; burned meat or flesh, petrol and something like sweat. It wasn’t such a pleasant smell, but it smelled like a bad BBQ. I could hear men shouting in a foreign language and gunshots and people running. All my senses where agitated and the sounds took me into a trance. After some time I think Khadaffi must have been alone: running and panting, trying to escape. Then I heard a deafening crash and men shouting again. It became louder and louder until an automatic weapon went off, a few times but the last one was too close… silence.. peace.. death had freed him. At least, that is how I felt.
