What's "Equine Eyes"?
Equine Eyes is a wearable headset that allows the user to experience some of what it is like to have a horse's perspective on the world.
The headset uses two cameras in the eyes, linked to custom build hardware and software to let the user experience how a horses vision differs from a humans.
It is designed to help us better imagine and know other species through speculation and play.
Who's it for?
Equine Eyes has two key audiences. The project will be of interest to those who are designing systems and technologies that interact with animals because it demonstrates a playful approach to understanding an animal perspectives. The project is also of interest to public audiences as it helps people to think provocatively about what their relationships to other species are.
Approach
The project explores how can we better understand the experiences of other species. This open-ended challenge offers limited scope to approach through scientific methods and instead uses Design as a way to explore and think through the issues. Design Research is flexible enough to approach these open-ended research challenges and open new ways to think about and experience the world . In this case Research through Design and Speculative Design informed the design and development of this experience that helps users ‘see like a horse’
An iterative prototyping approach helped develop the technology then user research was used alongside innovative Research Diaries to help refine the findings and contributions (see image of the diary to the right, and extracts from it below).
Contribution
Equine Eyes created a blueprint design for how we can use a mask to gain some experience of what it is like to be a horse. This is an approach that could easily be recreated for other species too.
Being able to obtain these interspecies perspectives is important to help us understand how to improve animal welfare and to design more ecological technology.
As well as very practical contributions (e.g., how to design a mask that represents another species) the project has resulted in many philosophical contributions (e.g., about design, ecology, and human relationships with other species).
Ultimately it helps us better understand humanity's place in the world
Why is it in the Observatory?
The project is an excellent example of how practical Design Research can simultaneously solve a problem and provide accessible ways to try and understand the world better.
In this case the work solves the problem of how to give an approximation of what it is like to see the world from the perspective of the horse.
Meanwhile, it also opens up much deeper philosophical questions about what it means to be a human and how we make sense of our place in the world.