In class we discussed atmospheres, what they were, and how we could alter them by changing haptic, lighting, and other senses within the environment we were in to induce and modify how people felt and experienced the environment.
In our group, we talked about different feelings people could gain from environments, such as sadness, awkwardness, anger, frustration, boredom, joy and fear. We decided to base our atmospheric change on awkwardness - attempting to sway people's perception of the space to make them feel awkward within the environment.
Within this one emotion we brainstormed further as to how we could make people feel it. We thought about how people sitting closely together forces them to make eye-contact with strangers and people nearby, and we decided to seat them in two circles, facing each other so that their backs were vulnerable, and they were surrounded by unknown people.
This did create an awkward tension and atmosphere in the room that we were after.
Another thing that happened was when everyone walked into the room they all stopped at the doors with a wtf look on their faces and didn't know what to do. They obviously were uncomfortable of the sight of having sit within breathing space of one another.
ReplyDeleteTwo things that were already occurring in the room that helped with our concept of being uncomfortable and awkward was the stale lighting and the dull humming coming from the air ducts. They have the room a sense of high expectations, and with nobody knowing what they were doing they were unknowingly forced to feel awkward