SPACING OUT

This project takes the theme SPACE quite literally and figuratively onto a digital yet physical experience.

One's personal headspace is the smallest in size yet largest in imagination spatial area. Especially nowadays, when we get so sensory overloaded with urbanisation, technology and this pandemic, we think it's good to be able to "disappear" with your head for a moment.

The 360 degrees VR bowl-shaped helmet offers an individual room for contemplation, reflection, and provides a certain sense of relieve. The installation is made to visually and functionally counterattack all chaos; to daydream if you will. Generally, the phrase Spacing Out implies that you are not in the moment, and your thoughts are elsewhere. The highest form of spacing out is being stoned (smoking marijuana) where at its weirdest point the shape of circles become the most interesting you've ever seen and everything around you starts to move towards or away from you. We wanted to play off of this concept, and we're also inspired by the responsive environments by Myron Krueger.

We've seen examples of interactive art moving according to the beat of the music, but we're taking this to the next level making it up-close and personal. The user can choose his/her preferred song and the art will move accordingly. While you have the experience of spacing out inside the head mount, the rest of the audience can also view the dancing circles and your bodily movements (tracked real-time by a drone camera) on the outside of the bowl-dome. They can look into your thoughts if you will.

If the user chooses to physically move and walk in a different lane, for example, then a distance sensor picks that up and changes the mood from calm to more upbeat. This causes for a different experience, still the user can choose to walk back to other lanes and experiment with the different moods.

Most interesting about this project, is that it doesn't need much of an explanation. The concept behind it is immediately understood when one starts to interact with the installation. It is big, obnoxious and quite literally makes you look like an alien from SPACE which will evoke the audience to look under/inside it and space out.