Envision a domestic environment specifically tailored and mediated for idiosyncratic obsessions. An investigation of inventions for performance and movement.

My goal for this project was to create a domesticated environment which enabled a person who is obsessed with Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians,” to perform, tap into the music in order to hear it, or become a part of it. This was explored through creating drawings which proposed alternative performative systems of physical interaction.

These proposals were intended as:
• interventions within this person’s daily life
• objects with resonance and frequency which the user must find and access
• systems of interaction which would require a unique personality to perform

The interesting aspect of this project was my exploration of alternative proposals and interactions in a highly abstract manner. My failures in this project was my delivery and contextualization of the work put forth. In failure of taking ownership of my abstractions, I was unable to create a layer of tangibility which the audience could use to grasp on to.

Aspects of my drawings and explorations could have included:
• a short narrative
• a display of a schedule
• a list of rituals
• a snap shot from the daily routine during this “event”

Another aspect which could have been added to strengthen my abstractions was the use of motion or video and of course, sound or the music itself, to enhance the communication of my abstract concepts.

In essence I was more interested in the system than the domestic environment itself. And how the systems themselves connote a certain type of mentality which would instigate the possibilities of the domestic environment. Tying the music to the daily rituals of so-called standard life routines seemed too cliche and uninteresting, in fact I felt they were implied and being too explicit to state that connection was not needed. Rather, I searched to explore numerous avenues of materiality, strange interactions, spatial relationships, and technology.

System 1: Responsive Mesh

System 2: Polygraph Momentum

System 3: Resonant Artifacts and Objects

System 4: Accelerometer and Floor Sensors

System 5: Triangulation and Infrared Detection