APD: Play + Stillness

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SACTK9mgzKQ

Method: 

Create a reflective installation based design, creating calm through a variety of senses using sound, nature, stillness and body. 

Context: 

This weeks response came from a variety of influences from research throughout previous responses, the idea of creating calm in the midst of my chaos and picking out key words from the group’s weekly brainstorm on the theme such as senses, waiting, zen, meditation and sounds. 

Some examples of stillness through design and play that I found interesting in thinking about this weeks response was “Seeking Stillness” by practitioner George Fok. In which this work is described to be “A long-form immersive poem in five parts, via sounds and colours, where the audience can congregate for introspection and self-reflection.” In which the experience provides a therapeutic and meditative moment for the audience through the use of projections and sound. ‘The borderless world’ by teamlab at the MORI Building Digital Art Museum in Tokyo allows the audience to wander, discover and explore a world of artworks without boundaries creating a multi-sensory experience throughout different spaces for the body to immerse itself in. Practitioner Zen Teh, was inspired to create a work that explored movement and stillness within nature through a dry garden installation inspired by meditation and Japanese dry gardens. Which the artwork aims to ‘create a garden beyond an intermediate space between man and nature, representing the mindscape of the artist’ through the use of sea wave imagery, stones/marble slabs and sand.

Throughout my research for nature, I found a lot of different designs arounds reflexology foot paths and sensory pathways, which I found quite interesting. A reflexology foot path is that which is designed to stimulate and massage certain pressure points in the feet, using a variety of different pebbles, stones or rocks to stimulate particular reflex zones. There are many benefits medically around the use of these, which can help to improve balance, physical performance and blood pressure throughout older adults. There is a stillness required throughout the process, requiring one to slowly walk, take breaths in and out and taking it easy with breaks where required. 

These walks allow us to connect with nature and stimulate our senses, in which nature itself allows us to heal and improve our general well being, whether this is through exercise, play or meditative practices. 

Sensory play allows us to explore movement, balance, taste, sight, sound and touch. By combining play through both physical and digital platforms we are able to design immersive, sensory experiences for audiences that provide the same self-reflection, emotional reactions and energy that nature can provide us, without necessarily being within nature – allowing us to seek and create different ways in which we can explore stillness. 
 

Response: 

• Tinker in Garageband to create dream like or mediative music
• Create buckets filled with different stones in each one filled with water 
• Setup led lights that react to beats of music and wrap around each bucket
• Setup Makey Makey to laptop and code it so the water is the “button” that plays until released 
• Combine all elements together and test concept 

Reflection: 

The research for nature and discovering sensory playgrounds and walks either for sensory play or reflexology let me down a pathway of wanting to create a sense of place through playing with the combination of sounds, music, nature and digital lights to create an overall reflective experience in which the audience stands still in darkness immersed in a meditative experience. 

Water is a universally soothing phenomenon, in which it helps trigger responses in our brains that induce chemicals that increase blood flow throughout our bodies, inviting our bodies to relax. I wanted to combine the relaxation of water with nature, music and lights for an all round sensory experience, which could be adaptable and installed to the needs of the audience in a suitable environment – without necessarily being out in a forest. We can already meditate at home in our own space using music, sounds, the garden and smell, however I wanted to find a solution that encompassed a handful of healing practices within the one zone in order to create stillness. 

I extracted the concept of standing on different stones from sensory and reflexology walks to create some sort of low level foot basin filled with water as a base for the audience to anchor themselves to.  These basins are then wrapped around in lighting which respond to the medatitive music playing, which changes on each basin to create three different experiences and senses of place. The first piece of music I composed quickly using garageband as this was my starting point in the project and wanting to find my own sense of calm, tinkering to see what ideas evolved as I played with a variety of sounds. The other two pieces were compiled using a range of effects from Soundsnap – one beach themed and the other more forest. Each of these are targeted to their individual foot pod which reflect the style of rocks used to interpret their feeling. 

The small prorotype of the concept worked out fairly well, although it didn’t come without it’s challenges with getting the code right so the music would stop once a person’s foot left the water, which took me a few attempts and ideally I would have preferred to try it with led tubing wired or coded as such to the makey makey itself or some other circuit board so that each of the lights responded only to the basin they were attached to. The theory was there, however I didn’t have the hardware or perhaps the skills to implement this, so when testing the concept – all the lights are reacting together, rather than individually. It would have also been great to have longer wires to hide the laptop away for a more enjoyable experience overall. The idea itself could be taken further with the implementation of projection working as a spotlight over the top of each basin for a certain diameter out of this on the floor, or a wall to create an extra dimension to the experience – but it could also potentially become too overwhelming with so many different things going on. 

The response was varied due to the nature of different rocks and pebbles used, which provides the audience with choices around the experience they would like to get out of it. Each of the pods utilise different styled rocks/pebbles which is reflective of the reflexology walks - due to this nature, some are smooth and comfortable and others are rough and hard to deliberalty target certain pressure points in the body. I found the experience relaxing, whilst my tester found the harder rocks unbearable and heading back to pod number 1. 

References: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlV9OtzPiCc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUvF9OP7lhQ
https://borderless.teamlab.art/
http://lallouslab.net/2014/11/14/health-benefits-of-foot-reflexology-path/
https://positivepsychology.com/positive-effects-of-nature/