MIT’s Sensory Fiction makes you feel everything you read

If you’ve always had trouble relating to fiction, the folks from MIT have just the cure for your lack of empathy – Sensory Fiction.

The aptly-titled The Girl Who Was Plugged In lets its reader experience the full range of the protagonist’s emotions: from love and despair to freedom and captivity through a network of sensors and actuators. You know what this means – expect the mother of all moodswings.

SENSORY FICTION from Felix on Vimeo.

The book itself comes with an LED-studded cover to provide ambient lighting based on the settings and moods featured in the story.

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But it’s the vest that it comes with that will allow you to experience the agony and the ecstacy of physiological emotions. It contains a personal heating device to change the wearer’s skin temperature and a compression system to simulate pressure via airbags. If that doesn’t sound intense enough, certain passages also trigger vibration to influence heart rate.

While it sounds too awkward to go mainstream right now, it spells great interactivity for the future of literature. Or at the very least, be an effective tool for plugging reading habits – literally.

Source: MIT Media Lab via Designboom

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