Time Travel: Coming to a Living Room Near You
Inside the innovative Seattle company promising to let people relive key moments in time
Tucked away amongst the warehouses that dominate Seattle’s Industrial District landscape, Sensory Hijack Labs’ (SHL) headquarters couldn’t be more discrete. It’s boxy grey facade blends in seamlessly with the grungy atmosphere, interrupted only by a washed-out green door and a small sign with the company’s logo — the letters S, H, and L in a rather dull font.
The surroundings are equally lifeless and bleak. Even the scruffy cat that slowly makes its way across the parking lot seems to be questioning its life decisions and holding little hope for better days.
All this seems on purpose once you consider what SHL has been up to ever since Robert González and business partner Jay Zecevich founded the company six years ago.
“I guess it’s somewhat fitting, yeah,” González contemplates with a timid smile as he glances around the low-key office. “In a way, we’re proposing a temporary escape from reality, so you could say the dullness of this place helps make people want out. We didn’t plan it that way though, it’s just that our focus isn’t on this space.”
The company has garnered a fair bit of attention recently after a handful of reviews of its maiden yet-to-be-released product started trickling out on the internet. Only a select few have been invited to trial what is internally dubbed as “DeLorean”, and today, it’s my turn.
DeLorean works through a combination of a helmet-like apparatus called a brain-machine interface (BMI), the administration of a handful of nanobots nicknamed Senselets, and some incredibly clever software. Together they produce virtual simulations that reviews say are indistinguishable from real life.
The Senselets play a crucial role — by attaching themselves to the brain’s neocortex, they essentially override the host’s sensory perception with whatever signals are sent down by the software powering the BMI.
The catch. Due to its use of nanobots, the product isn’t exactly legal in the US, yet. SHLs workaround has been as much ingenious as it has been controversial.
Anchored just outside US territorial waters sits Neo, SHLs custom-fit 148-foot yacht. Registered in the Cayman Islands, it’s equipped with everything required to run trials far away from the scrutiny of US law.
An hour and a half helicopter ride later, Zecevich and I are both on board the Neo, and he starts preparing me for what’s to come.
“So. To tailor our experience today we’ve done a bit of a background check on you, particularly on your taste for music. I won’t go into any further details, but I think you’ll be blown away,” he says, somewhat cryptically.
“The first five minutes are crucial. It’s a bit like scuba diving, you’ve gotta get over the initial rush, take it all in, and just remember to breathe,” Zecevich instructs, unaware of the fact that I’ve never scuba’d in my life.
As I sign a few papers that essentially forgo SHL of responsibilities should anything happen, Zecevich picks up on my nervousness and is quick in offering words of reassurance, “Don’t worry, I’ve participated in hundreds of these already. Plus, we’re only a few months away from getting sign-off.”
We’re both fitted with our BMIs and placed in extremely comfortable lounge chairs, at which point I’m prepared for receiving my dose of Senselets. The procedure is surprisingly quick and painless, and in a matter of seconds the nanobots have made their way through my capillaries and docked onto my cortex.
“Alright, let’s do this. I’ll be easy to spot, see you on the other side,” Zecevich says as he waves and leans his head back…
All I remember from the “transition” is what felt like a short two-second blackout. When I came back to my senses I was no longer on board the Neo. It was now night time and I was standing on the side of a busy city street.
I still had a full sense of what was going on — that my body was, in fact, sitting on a chair, in a boat, out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. But the realness of what I was seeing, and feeling, was playing heavy tricks with my mind.
All of a sudden I feel a tap on my shoulder, “Hey there bud, how are you feeling?” It was Zecevich, looking, well, exactly like Zecevich. I tell him that it was all a bit overwhelming, at which point he reminds me to breathe and reassures me that whatever happens, we’re just one press of a button away from returning to the Neo.
“Come on, you’re not going to want to be late to this,” he says, leading me across the street. By now I’ve started making sense of the familiarities in our surroundings. We pass an Odeon cinema and I realise we’re in the heart of the borough of Camden — a place I know well from my university years in London.
A few blocks later we arrive at the renowned Dublin Castle, a pub-cum-music venue that’s hosted its fair share of acclaimed acts over the years.
“So, as I mentioned, we’ve done a bit of digging around into your taste for music, and we thought you’d enjoy this particular experience a lot,” Zecevich says as we’re checked by bouncers. Yes, bouncers — the level of detail SHL has devoted to making this feel real is incredible.
I start getting a sense of who we’re here for, and a few moments later my assumptions materialise themselves as I spot the late Amy Winehouse in the distance. My jaw drops, even knowing that this Winehouse is composed of bits and bytes, I can’t help but feel starstruck.
“We’ve recreated one of Amy’s performances from 2007, it’s one of our most ambitious experiences to date,” Zecevich explains as we make our way into the bustling back room. “You can interact with essentially anyone, they all have their unique personalities coded in,” he says as he proceeds to strike up a conversation about Winehouse’s Frank album with a virtual bystander.
The show itself is brilliant. Through much trial and error, SHL has been able to recreate Winehouse’s unique voice, and the results are astonishing. Zecevich confides that they enlisted 11 people with ties to late singer in order to perfect their re-creation in minute detail. Even the banter in between songs is distinctively Winehouse-ish — at one point she proclaims her love for Camden and tells the crowd to get out if they’re not local.
As the gig comes to an end with a remarkable rendition of “Love Is a Losing Game”, I’m left wanting more as the crowd pleads for yet another encore. Unfortunately, Zecevich breaks the news that it is indeed over and I’m warned that I’ll feel another momentary blackout whilst we’re disconnected from the simulation.
Not long after, we’re back on the comfy seats of the Neo—the to and fro of the sea helping me grasp that I’m no longer in London, and in fact, never was.
On our ride back to Seattle, Zecevich informs me of SHL’s next steps. By focusing first on re-creating historical music events, they hope to generate the buzz needed to expand further into other types of experiences. When asked what other types, his eyes light up excitedly, “Just imagine a kid learning about the Israel Palestine One-State agreement by being in Jerusalem on inauguration day; or another hearing Dr. King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech from the Reverend himself. That’s where we want to take people.”
At the hotel later that night, my memories blend in with each other as I have a hard time digesting what truly unfolded that day. I’m sure I was out on a boat floating off the US coast. At the same time, witnessing Winehouse live felt so incredibly real that I’m still buzzing from post-show excitement.
I leave Seattle with a renewed outlook on the benefits of tech, and assured that the hype behind SHL’s “DeLorean” is undeniably justified. Its ramifications will stretch well beyond the entertainment industry, ultimately gifting us the ability to revisit our past as a means to better understand our future.
The Evening Star Herald is a publication of speculative fiction articles. Any resemblance with reality is pure coincidence.
