Challenging Disability and Interaction Norms in XR: Cooling Down the Empathy Machine in Waiting for Hands
Yesica Duarte, Jain, Puneet · Spectrum Research Repository (Concordia University) · 2025
Virtual Reality (VR) is often hailed as the “ultimate empathy machine,” framing disability as an experience to be simulated through such technologies—reducing disability to a spectacle of pity or inspiration. In response, we present Waiting for Hands (WfH), an interactive eXtended Reality (XR) installation that critiques this logic by: (1) Repurposing interaction norms in XR by building Alternative Controllers, and (2) Staging an absurd XR performance experienced using the built controllers to disrupt the sentimentalized disability narratives. The XR performance involves eight persons: two XR participants on stage and six seated audience members who watch a projected documentary about Hema Kumari, an Indian singer living with Rheumatoid Arthritis. The XR users’ partially obscure the film, diverting audience attention through strange mouth and hand movements (instructed to perform in XR), creating a dual-layered experience that disrupts active viewership in Hema’s story and introduces uncertainty. While XR is considered as a hot medium—fully immersive and sensory-dominant—this piece subverts that rationale by repurposing XR to produce absurdity and alienation effect. By defying empathetic, hence pitiable narratives of disability, we reflect: what ethical stance an XR performance can take to attune participants to a non-normative body schema while resisting spectacle?