These Sleepless Nights mixed reality exhibit addresses homelessness in the U.S.

These Sleepless Nights is a mixed reality documentary that uses cutting-edge spatial computing technology to allow visitors to listen, connect, and engage with those who are homeless.

The exhibit, viewable through Magic Leap augmented reality glasses and eventually through VR and on smartphones, is meant to draw attention to those on the frontline of America’s eviction crisis. The creators such as Magic Leap’s Gabo Arora and Fable’s Edward Saatchi support The Next Amendment, or an effort to change to the U.S. Constitution that calls for housing as a fundamental right. The exhibit debuted at the 76th Venice International Film Festival.

The process of eviction involves the collision of home life, the law, the market, along with America’s fraught history of racial and economic injustice, the creators said.

These Sleepless nights enables one to explore in-depth the experiences of those who have intimate experiences with these collisions, be it as memories from childhood, being bored at work or trying to be a mother when you can’t pay the rent.

“The right to shelter is the Next Amendment,” said Saatchi, executive producer of the project and cofounder of Fable, in an interview with VentureBeat. “As public art, this will be accessible. People can experience what it’s like to live experience somebody else’s life. We know that empathy is a big part of understanding the issue. But it’s only a very small percentage of people who get to experience that.”

(I interviewed Saatchi this week while I was inside Disneyland, the happiest place on Earth).

Making use of augmented reality and spatial computing, one is able to navigate their own journey through these stories and conduct their own experience. It brings nuance and a new perspective on a situation we can no longer keep sleeping through.

The eviction numbers

Above: These Sleepless Nights

Image Credit: The Next Amendment

The exhibit notes that 2.35 million eviction cases were filed in 2016, and 2.3 million people were evicted, or 6,349 people per day, according to the EvictionLab.

“The state has the responsibility to extend shelter from the elements to all citizens,” said Saatchi.

A proposed solution

The right to shelter and the proposed Next Amendment raises the lowest that a citizen can fall. The goal is to start a trial for the right to shelter in five U.S. cities. The group wants a bipartisan result, and so it proposes working with conservative think tanks on how to inexpensively and efficiently implement a right to shelter nationally.

“We trying to raise the lowest to which you can fall,” Saatchi said. “We want to talk to conservatives so that it becomes something that we’re all together on. If you want it to be an amendment to the Constitution, you need them. How can we do it in the most efficient way?”

It hopes to use the information gathered from trials and proposals to right to shelter laws in a state constitution. Then it wants to gather enough data and best practices that voters and lawmakers are comfortable voting for a right to shelter to be added to the Constitution.

The Next Amendment commissioned These Sleepless Nights to raise $1 million for local action networks providing Housing First solutions from Oakland to the Bronx.

To get involved, you can send an email to [email protected]. You’ll eventually be able to get a Next Amendment app and donate money.

“We were inspired by the Housing First movement. Instead of trying to deal with everything at once — mental illness, housing, addiction, special behavior — this could stabilize people’s lives and the other things get better and improve once you have that stability,” Saatchi said.

Above: These Sleepless Nights

Image Credit: The Next Amendment

The credits for These Sleepless Nights go to director Gabo Arora, executive producer Edward Saatchi, musician Philip Glass, audio designer Lauren Hutchinson, producer Barry Pousman, creative producer Nicolas Roy, project manager Laurie Caron, experience designer Maude Thibodeau, and builders Josquin Zabka, Zachary Labrosse Rémillard, and Louis Thériault-Boivin.

Other credits go to Johns Hopkins University Immersive Storytelling and Emerging Technologies Lab, 371 Productions, DPT, Unfurl Productions, Magic Leap, and the Institute for the Future.

The process of eviction involves the collision of home life, the law, the market, along with America’s fraught history of racial and economic injustice. These Sleepless Nights enables one to explore in-depth the experiences of those who have intimate experiences with these collisions, be it as memories from childhood, being bored at work or trying to be a mother when you can’t pay the rent.

Making use of augmented reality and spatial computing, one is able to navigate their own journey through these stories and conduct their own experience. It brings nuance and a new perspective on a situation we can no longer keep sleeping through.

The mixed reality installation and documentary, in partnership with Magic Leap, was inspired by Matthew Desmond’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book Evicted.

These Sleepless Nights will become a public art installation in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Milwaukee to raise funds for a right to shelter, accessible as an app on iPhones.

Saatchi said that one example of efforts to fight homelessness include the Tuff Shed home project in Oakland, California.