Narrative Experience
Fall 2021
Prompt
In this project I will be developing multi-sensory experiences inspired by stories recorded by StoryCorps. The goal is to evoke emotions and personal memories in the viewer that mirror or complement my assigned story by stimulating multiple senses.
Considerations
- How might we use space to trigger memory and imagination?
- How might an experience be a catalyst for empathy and compassion?
- How might sound, sight, smell, taste, touch, and space interact?
- How might we design an experience that is inclusive?
9/9 Thursday
My story was about how father and son’s shared love for music brought their Brooklyn, New York neighborhood together, as the COVID-19 pandemic was ripping families apart.
In the story, Jo Vill and Chad Vill mentioned that their neighbors did not really talk to each other much despite that they have been living in that block together since 1989, but the block party brought everyone’s heart together and they became more of a community. I really like this aspect of the story, so I wanted to include this transition in intimacy/mood provoked by music in my experience design.
Another important aspect of the story is “you reap what you sow,” which highlights the effort needed to establish connection and the individual contribution to build a community.
To further explore what elements I could play with, I started organizing information from the story and categorizing the elements into sound. emotion, touch, and vision:
My initial idea was to design a one-person experience. There are couple reasons for this. First, I want the viewers to experience the isolation first and reduce the distraction from other people, so that they are less self-conscious about exploring the space.
The sequence of the experience goes like this:
- Isolation: go through a narrow, dark pathway with stressful sound of ambulance noise & people coughing and interactive shadows of people that avoids the viewer.
- Transition: intrigued by the dim light.
- Exploration: heuristic DJ table invites visitor to play music on their phone. Base on the melody, beats, and other features of the musics, colorful graphic emerges from the DJ table and projects onto the walls. The shadows that previously avoid the views join & dance.
- Bonding: a speaker on the outside broadcast the music+graphics will be mapped on the exterior>>attract passerby. After the viewer exit the room, he/she will be surprised to see a group of strangers gathering at the door and enjoying the music. They could start conversations.
During class, I got feedback that:
- establish relationship with real people, not just shadows (more participants)
- don’t count on passerby
- reflect on how abstract/realistic the graphic would be
- work on smoothing the transition from fear to joy
9/10 Friday
After getting feedback from Daphne, I realized that I need to be more realistic about constructing social interaction.
Therefore, I decided to change the experience into a 4-people one. I still want each of them to experience the isolation part on their own first, which is doable, as showed in the second floor plan iteration.
- (unchanged) Isolation: go through a narrow, dark pathway with stressful sound of ambulance noise & people coughing and interactive abstract graphics that avoids the viewer.
2. (update!)Transition: intrigued by the dim light. As a group of 4 strangers meet at the center area, they feel confused and awkward.
3. (update!)Exploration: heuristic DJ table invites one of the visitors to play music on his/her phone. Base on the melody, beats, and other features of the musics, colorful graphic emerges from the DJ table and projects onto the walls.
Below is an example of how the interface works (not using the style)
4. (update!)Bonding: As the environment gets more and more lit, lively and colorful, the vibe & mood of the room becomes more cheerful. As each person play his/her favorite music, everyone gets to know each other a bit more. They could start a conversation about music preferences.
9/14 Tuesday
Technology Support
I started researching what technology I could borrow to realize my ideas.
I found this project called GeoMusica, which allows people to make music through manipulating the size/rotation speed of geometric shapes.
This sounds like a promising method to help everyone compose music, but I believe they will enjoy the exploration process more than the result of it.
Dot Piano is a web-based visual musical instrument. I like how it supports recording & sharing music with random people online, but in terms of making music, it requires more prior knowledge of music.
“Camschnappr” Armed with a 3D model of what is being projecting onto, simply line up 6 points with the Camschnappr interface and it calculates the position of the projector automatically adjusting the output to fit the 3D shape.
9/21 Tuesday
Iteration 3#
When I started visualizing the interactions, I realized that having touch screen on the walls would separate them from gathering at the center and turn their backs at each other, which does not feel connected as I want them to be.
My solution is to create this large-scale hologram device with transparent touch screens on the sides and small projectors embedded inside to create a 3d mesh of all the geometric shapes from each side.
This allows people to see each other while engaging with the interface.
Another reason that I prefer the hologram touch screen idea is that it changes people’s body pose, which could affect their emotions according the experiment below by Harvard University.
Different poses affected our brain’s production of chemicals.
Feedback:
- The room feels very “techie” and otherworldly, which could make people feel intimidating and confused.
- The center area is very crowded, think about how to open up more space.
- Think about the feeling in the room, what do I want them to feel?
Next-Step:
- Change the physical model: consider how the ceiling should look like (fits into people’s schema of a party room)
9/27 Mon
My current goal is to lighten up the mood and make the room feel more appropriate for having fun and making music.
I started looking up photo reference online and recalling experience of places I have been to.
I decided to play with more materials and experienment that on my physical model.
Final Physical model
Final Visualization (In sequence)
