Lab Rat

Lab Rat is a dual-screen asymmetric installation that transforms the private stress of playing a difficult video game into a public surveillance experiment. While the player struggles inside a first-person maze connected to biometric sensors, the audience observes and influences them through a detached laboratory monitoring system, exploring how empathy changes when human suffering becomes data.

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Abstract

Lab Rat Background: Lab Rat is an interactive installation that investigates surveillance, asymmetrical power dynamics, and the gamification of human psychological distress. Drawing upon behavioral conditioning frameworks such as the Skinner Box, the project transforms the traditionally private experience of frustration within video games into a public, observable spectacle.  System Design: The dual-screen experience bifurcates participants into two distinct roles: the Subject and the Observers. This separation is reinforced within the physical installation space through the use of black curtains with small observation openings, mirroring the aesthetic and dynamic of an experimental test chamber where the audience can watch the player both digitally and physically.  Interaction Mechanics: The Subject navigates a time-constrained, first-person maze while tethered to biometric sensors that measure heart rate and galvanic skin response. Their experience is characterized by repeated failure states, restricted visibility, and physical haptic feedback delivered through wearable wrist and controller motors. Concurrently, Observers monitor the Subject through a covert, laboratory-style surveillance interface that displays real-time biometric data, movement patterns, CCTV footage, and event logs. Later iterations introduce interactive audience mechanics, allowing Observers to covertly manipulate the environment (e.g., opening doors, placing "cheese" rewards) and shifting them from passive spectators to active participants.  Conceptual Focus: The project emphasizes asymmetrical information and emotional detachment. On the surveillance interface, the Subject's human agency is obscured, reducing them to abstract data, symbols, and navigational markers on a minimap to reinforce the metaphor of a monitored laboratory animal.  Technical Implementation: The installation was developed using Unity and features a custom dual-screen system integrated with Arduino-based biometric hardware to facilitate real-time data transmission and haptic feedback.  Conclusion: Ultimately, Lab Rat serves as a critical inquiry into human-computer interaction and psychology, asking whether empathy begins to dissipate when human suffering is successfully translated into measurable systems, clinical interfaces, and gameplay mechanics.  Keywords: Interactive Installation, Surveillance, Asymmetrical Gameplay, Biometric Data, Behavioral Conditioning, Empathy.

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