Intimate Aesthetics and Facilitated Interaction

Sensibility, Narcissism and Affect: Using Immersive Practices in Design for Embodied Experience

“…The 'nurse' from Cold Storage is the key example here. This again is where Loke and Khut's categories of 'Welcoming' and 'Fitting and Induction' are particularly relevant [28]. Many interaction or experience designs can be adequately contextualised by their installation in a gallery or other designated space, using the larger conference or art event as their 'welcoming', and their 'fitting and induction' can be covered by an accompanying text.…”

“…However, some interaction or experience designs require more detailed or hands-on involvement from someone knowledgeable about the design and the designers' intentions. We would argue that the more immersive a design aspires to be, the more likely it is to benefit from thorough consideration of how individuals might contribute to the design experience, especially before and/or after the experience itself (the 'Ride' in Loke and Khut's terminology, [28]). This does not necessarily mean that the most immersive experiences need to have the most involved interactions with other people.…”

“…A handful of publications discussing works of Live Art (a type of performance practice) refer obliquely to audience members bringing other relationships to mind during performance [26] and Deirdre Heddon discusses the ethics of implicating other people in autobiographical performance [27], yet any techniques they discuss tend to revolve around human co-presence. In fact, Lian Loke and George Poonhkin Khut have taken what we consider to be a parallel approach to ours, using Live Art performance to derive a means of structuring non-autonomous interaction designs, using 'intimate aesthetics' to understand the nature of the interaction [28]. However, we found that the literature around another genre-immersive theatre-provided sustained discussions on how to develop affective responses to other people, not actors performing in a demarcated area 'over there' but people intermingled with the spectators in such a way that physical interaction could be imagined, invited, or even demanded.…”

“…Rather, an individual in the role of a 'nurse' leads participants in, one at a time and eventually takes them out. In Loke and Khut's terms, the nurse performs the function of 'Fitting and Induction' [28] (p. 97). Alston does not specify whether the 'nurse' explicitly lays out the risks of the piece or how the participant might opt out, but the simple fact that there is another person present in a public performance suggests that the risks should not be unmanageable and that there is likely a chance to opt out during the performance [28] (p. 97).…”

“…In Loke and Khut's terms, the nurse performs the function of 'Fitting and Induction' [28] (p. 97). Alston does not specify whether the 'nurse' explicitly lays out the risks of the piece or how the participant might opt out, but the simple fact that there is another person present in a public performance suggests that the risks should not be unmanageable and that there is likely a chance to opt out during the performance [28] (p. 97). Ever so briefly and anonymously, audience members form a relationship with a person with knowledge and, one might argue, authority-both as nurse and as performer/insider-to frame their relationship through the 'Ride' of the experience (the time spent enclosed and alone, see [28] p. 97) and to whom their minds can return.…”