

TITLE: Reflect(ions)


FORMAT: immersive sound installation
KEYWORDS: interaction design design research self intimacy experience narratives sound atmospheres immersion experiments
! Reflect(ions) is the final presentation of the overall design research project that explores self intimacy, and attempts to find possible ways of facilitating a more conscious experience of it with the methods of an interaction designer.
It is the intimacy of the self that interests me, and it is not understood as relationship therapies promote it. It is the situation when you experience something special on your own. This type of experience can take various forms and can be put into a series of expressions.
The project looks at this immaterial phenomenon very closely. It attempts to define self intimacy as an experience. It gives examples of capturing it in form of narrative texts, drawings, diagrams, and establishes a library of these experience bits. Furthermore it presents a series of further experiments in order to find ways of how to put these experiences into physical form and material.
I designed a spatial installation – a space that is filled with sound, and I invite the participants to step in and experience it. It is a space where one should slow down and take one’s time. Everybody is welcome and encouraged to explore the space. To come close, listen to the sounds, what they tell and how they change.
! The work summarizes some of the main findings from my design experiments, and serves as an example of how to materialize and facilitate self intimacy experiences.
  Why? It is not enough to understand intimacy by words. Attaining self intimacy happens via the experience through our own body and intellect.
Why is self intimacy important, at all? Self intimacy is the key to a series of things. If we are not able to attain it, we can risk to fall into unhappiness, depression, low self esteem, self destruction and no self respect. Just to mention a few examples.
The problem to be solved‌? Not all designs supposed to solve problems. Here the design does not aim to solve a problem as such – it invites the participants to an experience. While experiencing the installation one might ask questions, start to (re)consider and to speculate. Artistic and design research especially highly values these processes and the knowledge that is gained from them.
MATERIALS / TECHNIQUE: active speakers, small sound transducers, screen prints with conductive ink on transparent plexiglas, small circle-shaped aluminium plates, transparent speaker wires, cables, microcontroller, computer running a program in MaxMSP for interactive system, sound card, small amplifiers, power, circle-shaped wooden plate, steel wires, mounting
 
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