Empathy for the Devil: inside the headset with Norman Bates

VR has been subject to extensive hype, driven as Suchman (2016), Halpern (2015) and Rose (2018) argue, by a virulent form of techno-determinism associated with the trajectory of VR, from its military and computer science origins to its current prominence as a medium for non-fiction. In recent years, much has been claimed for Virtual Reality’s empathetic power, indeed, Chris Milk’s term ‘The Empathy Machine’ has become the clarion call for the current VR hype- cycle. Yet the presumed mechanism of empathy is so often taken for granted, subsumed in the catch-all term of ‘walking in other’s shoes’, and a notion, in particular, of location, which is arguably expunged of its sensorial and social complexity. In this configuration, the agency of VR is merely the ‘agency of perspective’ (Bishop, 2013), making Milk’s assertions hyperbolic: ‘So, it's a machine’ he states ‘but through this machine we become more compassionate, we become more empathetic, and we become more connected. And ultimately, we become more human.’ (Milk, 2015). But, as Rose asks, is there any truth behind the claims for VR’s exceptional empathic potential, or are we in fact, subject to a form of techno-determinism operating within a military and computer science tradition, which has little if any real claims towards a teleology of altruistic care for others? Might we argue, in fact, that VR is above all, a form of surveillant mechanism in the tradition of drones and CCTV cameras? Drawing upon Zyksinka (2017), Halpern (2015), Rose (2018) and Wells (2009), as well as Truffault (2017), Bloch (2013) and Hitchcock (2017), this presentation will articulate, by practice, the tensions embedded in the notion of the Empathy Machine