The world is progressing from its traditionally binary understanding of gender. Sport, with its huge ability to drive progress, can play an important role in breaking down these barriers.
'What Make an Athlete?' a campaign that celebrating the mental grit, vulnerability, and determination that women and non-binary communities demonstrate by continuing to pursue their athletic dreams (however big or small) in spite of institutional and social barriers. The campaign unfolded in The Space, a fluid, functional and fun environment, designed to reignite a love for sports within these communities. Drawing on my knowledge of the human nervous system and biofeedback, I designed an interactive experience that used wearable technology to foster a felt-sense of belonging. I leveraged my understanding of the human nervous system and biofeedback, proposed a somatically-driven interactive environment which used wearables to enable participants to experience a felt-sense of belonging.
Imagine walking into "The Space," a room where technology and human emotion harmoniously blend. As you step in, you're given a wearable device—sleek, comfortable, and unintrusive. This device will not only monitor key physiological metrics but also feed that data back into the environment and to you in real-time, creating a dynamic feedback loop.
1. Heart Rate Variability (HRV) to gauge stress and emotional openness.
2. Skin Conductance to measure emotional arousal or relaxation.
3. Body Temperature to get another layer of stress or relaxation data.
4. Respiratory Rate to gauge breathing patterns linked to emotional states.
1. Real-Time Individual Feedback: Your wearable vibrates softly or lights up when your metrics indicate you're in a relaxed and socially open state. This real-time biofeedback helps you become more aware of your emotional state and encourages self-regulation.
2. Environmental Adaptation: The Space itself morphs according to collective biofeedback data. Imagine the lights dimming or changing color when overall stress levels decrease, or soft, rhythmic music syncing with the average HRV of the room's occupants.
3. Collective Exercises: Occasionally, activities prompt guests to synchronize their breathing or focus on group meditations, driven by real-time feedback displayed on a communal screen.
1. Orientation: Drawing from the somatic therapy principle of 'orientation,' which focuses on attaining awareness of one's physical environment, bodily feelings, and emotional condition, the room's auditory and visual features could fluctuate in harmony with the room's overall emotional atmosphere. This environmental resonance aims not only to anchor individuals in the present— a technique frequently employed to alleviate stress, emotional upheaval, and trauma— but also to enhance emotional well-being and foster deeper interpersonal connections among participants.
2. Group Resonance: With everyone's wearable data being subtly reflected in the environment, participants feel a unique communal vibe—a group resonance—that fosters a felt sense of belonging.
3. Learning & Mastery: As participants get immediate feedback on their emotional state and see the room respond to collective emotional changes, they can better understand their emotional triggers and reactions, leading to mastery over time.
By combining wearables and biofeedback in an immersive, responsive environment, this multisensory experience would offer participants a cutting-edge, somatically-aware space that facilitated a deeper connection to their own physiological and emotional responses- countering feelings of exclusion and marginalisation by enabling a tangible and felt sense of belonging. The Space would travel across the country bringing this inclusive space to communities around outside of London that are usually overlooked.
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Act 1: A typical birthing story. A black woman strains whilst giving birth.
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Act 2: We hear the cry of a baby. We see tears being shed. Family holds each other.
Act 2: We hear the cry of a baby. We see tears being shed. Family holds each other.
