TYPE: MIXED MEDIA INSTALLATION EVENT: E17 ART TRAIL 2019 VENUE: ONE HOE STREET, LONDON (UK)
AFFECTUAL INFRASTRUCTURES
Developed for the E17 Art Trail 2019 in London. The AFFECTUAL INFRASTRUCTURES project continues to explore the use of Galvanic Skin response (GSR) information, investigating emotional group patterns in urban spaces.
Through a call on social media, six environmental activists were recruited. The participants - a mix of academics, designers, visual artists, and health professionals - were met at various locations in East London to record situated short speeches together with GSR information. Data patterns were observed at group level to detect common sonic, spatial, and emotional connections between the diverse experiences.
The GSR signals were further analysed with consideration to their urban location and overall spatial arrangement, making use of a multi-objective genetic algorithm that searched for three concurrent goals: time proximity, emotional proximity and peaks of tranquillity within the group.
The results informed a spatial installation that materialises for the audience the layered situated experiences of the participants. Built with a multitude of hand-formed rattan stems, the artifact spatialises the overall emotional group condition offering a physical rendition of the intertwined occurrences, while releasing the six sound recordings in overlays mixed along the specific pattern of emotional proximity within the group.
A conclusive panel discussion was organised with the participants to consider the findings. This was the second time that the group physically met after a first preliminary encounter, and the first opportunity for them to review each other outcomes. Acting as an open archive of sensual collective intelligence, the installation and the graphic supporting materials enabled the participants to navigate the different points of view, in a process of transindividual identification and collective subject formation. The session ultimately highlighted how the determination of an iterative mechanism of multi-objective responsiveness could potentially offer further moments for knowledge growth and collective purpose creation.
Credits
A project by FLOW Architecture (Annarita Papeschi & Vincent Nowak)
Project Team: Annarita Papeschi, Vincent Nowak, Jessica Lo Faro, Iva Liberta
The authors would like to warmly thank Claudia Pasquero, Rachel Summers, Maria Chiara Piccinelli, Vanessa Lastrucci, Samuel Bedford and Iva Liberta for their generous contributions.
The project was supported by a bursary from UCL Culture
Installation Photography: (C) Matthew Booth Photography
All other media: (C) FLOW Architecture