The Empathy Machine: Raising Awareness of Chronic Illness on World Psoriasis Day

The Empathy Machine, image: Sara Adhitya

Today is World Psoriasis Day and PEARL's latest ASPIRE project, the Empathy Machine, is helping raise much needed awareness of chronic illness such as psoriasis. A collaboration with Artist and Artistic Director of Creative Health Camden Antonia Attwood, the Empathy Machine is an example our how the Arts can sup the Sciences and help facilitate knowledge exchange between patients and their health practitioners.

Much more is needed than scientific data in diagnosing a patient and providing them with the treatment they deserve: it requires understanding one's lived experience and how it feels. This is where the sharing of an embodied experience can speak much more than words, and is what the Empathy Machine - an immersive, multisensorial tool for knowledge exchange developed at PEARL - is designed to do.

Today, we are proud to share with you how the Empathy Machine is already making a positive impact on healthcare through a number of channels: The Poorly Project, Autograph, and the Psoriasis Association; where you can read the article by Cengizhan Sen, Creative Director of the Poorly Project, describing his experience of The Empathy Machine: On Art and Illness. We are currently on the look-out to tour the Empathy Machine project in the wider community, so if you have a potential venue in mind, please get in touch!

www.thepoorlyproject.com

The Empathy Machine - The Poorly Project

Using simulation technologies to engineer sensorial experiences corresponding with conditions like psoriasis and causally linked psoriatic arthritis, The Empathy Machine acts as an immersive chamber where the senses of sight, smell, sound, taste, touch, and proprioception are piqued.