assisted by
Matthew Waldman, Tatsuya Saito
Part of final research at Keio Graduate School of Media Design
Everyone carries unprocessed emotions from experiences to some degree. Interestingly, the higher the emotional intensity, the more likely it is to become “trapped”. The first phase to overcoming it is to realize and learn about the emotion itself. Unfortunately, this first phase can be hard and difficult as it may involve some re-experiencing that can be traumatizing for some people.
This leads to the speculative idea of this room called the ‘Safe Emotion Field’, named after James Turrell’s work Open Field (2000) at the Chichu Art Museum in Naoshima, Japan. This research aims to discover how psychological sensors with visual color output can be an alternative for a more comforting experience to discover repressed human emotions.
The idea is to combine the sensory technology (body sensor or ambient sensing technology) with color in space installation. To start, the visitor can come and take a seat in the middle of the room. To help guide the visitor, a therapist will be present and the visitor will have the right to decide whether the therapist can be present as a guide inside the room and talk to them, or just as an observer outside the room.
As the visitor’s emotion starts to flow, the room will respond and be filled with color based on the emotions felt by the visitor. The visitor might feel joy represented by the color yellow, sad or remorse that represented by the color purple.
Through this experience, the visitor is expected to be able to discover the emotions that they feel when they remember certain things from the past to map the unprocessed emotions and as the first phase to overcome it in the journey of healing.