![A person stands in silhouette between two large monitors in a dark gallery space. The left screen displays an animated guinea pig with a human face embedded into its head. The right screen shows a bright virtual field under a blue sky. Subtitles at the bottom read “[transforming into a guinea pig],” indicating the narrative or interactive transformation taking place.](https://dxarts.washington.edu/sites/dxarts/files/images/representative%20image.jpg "The Guinea Pig Eligibility Test")
Published in the ACM Proceedings of the Expanded Conference at Ars Electronica 2025, this paper presents The Guinea Pig Eligibility Test, an interactive artwork that stages a simulated clinical research screening to examine the ethics of biometric data collection, gamified consent, and vulnerability scoring.
Participants first encounter a clinical-style consent form and questionnaire. Through strategic opacity and subtle cues, the system quietly rewards indicators of social vulnerability and encourages users to modify their responses over multiple attempts. Once a participant becomes “eligible,” their facial data is captured under strict biometric conditions and transformed into a rotating human–guinea pig hybrid—referencing historical and contemporary uses of bodies as experimental subjects.
With consent, these hybrids populate a shared virtual “farm,” a real-time environment composed of prior participants. Integrating HTML/JavaScript interfaces, MediaPipe facial capture, Babylon.js mesh generation, Unity animation, the work functions as both critique and experiential ethical intervention, confronting audiences with complicity, dehumanization, and the commodification of identity in data-driven systems.