“VR Squared”: How Sensory Reality Pods Reconfigure “Good Healthcare”

• In Event: Technoscience, Aesthetics, and the Senses - I

Abstract

Sensory reality (SR) is a new concept, which is currently being applied in healthcare settings in the Netherlands. It claims to be different from virtual reality in incorporating all of the senses, in order to create a real “experience”. The SR pod is a small cabin, containing VR-glasses, a headset, infra-red lights, odor sprays and blowers. Patients suffering from dementia, autism, mental problems or burnout benefit from experiencing positive brain stimulation. The pod is also helpful to PTSD sufferers, who are placed in the moment of trauma, in order to heal.

The big impact of the SR pod is said to be in healthcare, as it promises to improve patients’ general well being, thus cutting costs in an overextended healthcare system. The pod is currently being tested on dementia patients. Their vitals are recorded and saved, as the pod learns to gage their moods, tailoring experiences.
Designers and artists, in consultation with the care home managers, produce the software in a process of negotiation and balancing of aesthetic and practical values. This paper argues for an understanding of the disruptive and transformative impact the pod may have on ideas and (spatial) organization of health by focusing on the production of healing aesthetics as a collaborative activity. Engaging patients on a sensory level is a mode of care that is done through a particular software aesthetic, which is the result of a carefully negotiated balance. How are aesthetic values produced through the pod’s software and how do they (re)constitute “good care”?

Author

• Dara Ivanova, Erasmus School of Health Policy and Management