Advertisement

Cute, funny, kind? Design your own digital baby

Couples who want children of their own got a brief taste of parenthood by creating their own "digital babies" during a virtual reality art exhibit in the Netherlands. Design your own cyborg baby at this virtual reality exhibit Location: Amsterdam, the Netherlands Visitors simply fill out a questionnaire //about gender, character traits, and appearance // and out comes their digital baby (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR AND CREATOR OF THE 'IVF-X PROJECT', VICTORINE VAN ALPHEN, SAYING: "I think the biggest ethical question - and that's so interesting about this, once you are in here you are going with the system in a way, you are making the choices and then you will receive your cyborg. But the biggest choice is whether you want to have a choice. So that kind of question is sort of not within the experience but it's kind of hovering around it." The ‘IVF-X’ installation inspires couples to question parenthood and while many enjoyed the process reactions to their little ones were mixed (SOUNDBITE) (English) PARTICIPANT, JENNIFER VAN EXEL, SAYING: "If you would see this on the street you would be like, maybe more judgmental and I don't want to judge it because we created it and I don't want to say it's ugly. // I am not sure if other people would be able to relate to it. Like, we are the parents so obviously we created it and you want to be compassionate and loving but it's nothing human so it's really hard to actually relate to it."