WEEK 1

Brief: Design a way to establish Sensory Experiences amongst the people in your group whilst exploring the largest area of ~ London 🇬🇧

How we began🤸

Team: Ana Garcia, Manali Panchal, Sanjana Mehta — 🤝 Ana Garcia, Manali Panchal, Sanjana Mehta

We began our thinking with the things we do in our daily lives, but do not pay attention to how they happen.

We brainstormed about how to experience secondary senses, such as proprioception (the sense of our own body), balance, temperature, remembrance, perception of space, etc., which are other than the five major senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste). There were a lot of failures when thinking about an idea of experimenting with the senses and being connected at the same time.

📍51°30'51.3"N 0°06'15.4"W i.e. France Removals.

Narrow alley off Ludgate Hill,
Sitting at St Brides Church and enjoying the ambience.
Finally a stroll near the London Bridge

To record our journey I made a few rough sketches to explain and edit myself, also took some photos and videos to record the experience which you will be able to see below. My role in this field trip was to generate ideas and make them more fun.

coffee first!

We began our journey with a sense of togetherness with the same cup of coffee and our distinctive college ID cards to generate and find inspirations and become more human.

Speaking and thinking about sensations over and over again, we realized that we need to play out certain situations. We tried different methods in which we were able to connect with each other with Sensing Positions, Movements, Balance etc.

We began our search for proprioception and perception of space! A non-conscious reaction is seen in the human proprioceptive reflex

Sense of Direction

Ana (standing with eyes closed) received the instruction to just feel the environment.

What is incredible is that without knowing what will happen next, how each muscle in its body sends this information all the time. She finds the direction the other takes. We have so, so many inputs into our sensory system that give us feedback and orient our minds to what our bodies are doing.

[ A ]

[ B ]

Recognition 🤔 through a sense of memory.

While walking along the streets, I went to the girl [B] who was walking in front of me, thinking that she would be Sanjana [A] my teammate. Unfortunately, I am wrong because I had a sense of remembrance. We relate to each other with many other secret senses on which we do not pay attention in our everyday life.

The Balance System

How we observed sense of balance with our bodily senses.

Walking down the street, we thought about doing something interesting with our own stuff. We exchanged our bags and observed the personal reactions of our bodies. Different people on the team wore the same bag differently.

A compilation of the whole experience in a video created by myself.

WeeK 2

BRIEF: Design an experience that manipulates human senses.

After the day of experiments, we agreed that the whole journey gave us a chance to engage on a deeper level and directly communicate through the senses.

Ideation

The notion of feeling the same atmosphere was important as well. We decided that the experience within the church was most effectively felt together and can be shown to people.\

The experiences of the church served as a starting point to our prototype. We had the idea of building an ecclesiastical-inspired atmosphere in the studio using the sound that was recorded live by us at St. Bride Church, thus building togetherness and ambience in the classroom. After a conversation with our course leader, Dr John Fass, we decided to concentrate on developing the idea into more shapes of how it can be organized as a workshop or what materials can make it more interesting.

For my individual research, I made an organizational chart to make me clear about creating a multisensory experience.

Our experience of the church was used as the starting point of our prototype. We had an idea to establish an ecclesiastic-inspired atmosphere in the classroom, to build a sense of togetherness and atmosphere.

Having talked to Dr John Fass, our course director, decided to concentrate on developing our workshop idea in a more exploratory manner.

Our concept evolves around MIND + Body + ENVIRONMENT

We wanted a group of people to experience sensations by listening to a vocal note and drawing something out of the materials provided. We focused on the physicalities of the experiment. Designing a palpable experiment of somatic (an experience that affects all our senses and require us to be present) and visceral nature.

A vocal note was shared to each one in the classroom and were instructed to listen to the sound and draw.

Immersion in activities that require concentration, skill and practice is good for the human mind. Somatic experiments are rooted in nature. Building, creating, and/or crafting also helps to establish rich memories that expand our perception of senses and feelings.

Allowing free movement and occupying the mind in a way we evolved to experience nature.

Outcomes and reflections

Our workshop experience with the senses in class was appreciated by the students and the instructor. The incorporation of the music, including the catchy melody manipulated many senses with different body reactions. With more time and research, we would have added more layers to the experimental thinking. As a group, we have learned to pool our ideas and minds to explore the different body senses that are generated reflexively and implemented in the project.

References

Resnick, B., 2020. The Silent "Sixth" Sense. [Online] Vox. Available at: <https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/22/20920762/proprioception-sixth-sense>
https://bodyalive.tumblr.com/post/189549882468/the-silent-sixth-sense-proprioception-is-the
https://blog.oup.com/2016/06/movement-without-touch-ian-waterman/

Brief: Design a way to establish Sensory Experiences amongst the people in your group whilst exploring the largest area of ~ London 🇬🇧