As part of a collaboration between Pratt and Hennessy, I designed an experiment in which participants could create their own aura. The design explored how a person's experience of a given moment, and of her sense of self, is constantly changing. By giving this individual control over the process of change, the design examines how how perceived control together with visual perception influences interaction design.

Viewers would approach a stand on which I had mounted a webcam that projected the individual’s image on the wall in front of them. There was a box on the stand that instructed users to "create their own route," by waving their hands overtop. Inside the box, an arduino sensed their hand movements and changed the color of the aura projected on the wall. 

 

Auras are typically believed to be colored energetic orbs unique to each person that reflect one’s temperament and state of being in the present moment, as influenced by past and as indication of future potential. Because it is an abstracted view of the self, an individual can impart upon the image myriad levels of meaning.

 

With the design, I aimed to invoke what we conceive of as a conflicting duality: that we are both subject to our past and our subconscious selves while we are also in charge of our future, and that in visualizing this tension, a visitor might get in closer touch with these two poles of control. 

The experiment was exhibited at the Openhouse Gallery in Soho in November 2015. 

 

People who participated in the interaction largely used the design for taking selfies, which, of course, was not what the design intended. However, the experiment provided useful ethnographic data about how visual perception and social media influences physical and digital behavior.