My goal is to create a projected animation made of particles that becomes a text only when two people get close to each other. The projected animation will be inside a space that is designed to facilitate people getting closer to each other than usual. The text is about personal stories that everybody can relate to.
I wanted people to feel like they do when they read a book, translating the words on the page into thoughts and feelings, enabling them to see the world through the characters’ eyes and feel their feelings and, by doing so, trigger empathy.
Empathy has always been part of my life, I’m a highly sensitive person (or empath) and I’m really interested in human behavior and how people see themselves in society.
We believe we have to be perfect, although once we start sharing experiences, once we become vulnerable to each other, we realize that nobody is perfect. Everybody experiences the same situations during their lives, and it becomes easier for us to feel empathy.
It took me a long time to come up with the right solution for my project.
From the beginning, I knew that I wanted to combine space design and interaction design in my project because I am convinced that space plays an important role in triggering empathy. So I came up with a solution where I could have a double entrance and an inner intimate space where the projection would take place. The material for the structure should be woolen felt to reinforce the feeling of being immersed.
The interactive part consists of the projection of a particle animation which slowly moves in and out, and when two people get close enough to each other (close enough to feel empathy) the particles will fade into a text about personal stories.
When it comes to the possibilities of developing the project in the future, I would like to develop the interactive part. The idea is to make it more magic by improving my knowledge of the technologies required to expand the project. But I am also considering developing the project into a PhD in the next few years, and taking the process that I have developed in this project with me, building on it and strengthening it as I go.