The Unseen(2018)
Interactive, Group Project
Life can be both challenging and fruitful.
The experience in our visit to Dialogue in the Dark is an entertaining one. In a complete dark situation, our brain cannot make decisions according to our eyesight.
Time slows down, we lost our sense of directions and our goals. What we have experienced is an hour of solitude from rest of the world. To be honest, the one-hour blind experience is very hard core.
We use sound effects to stimulate the environment. Tactile stick as the route guidance.
There are sensors on the canes, so when participants step on the sensors, relevant sound effect will be triggered. For example, in the supermarket, there is a recording of a supermarket environment that we have recorded on-site.
In order to stimulate the idea of using sound to navigate directions, participants have to wear headphones in order to hear the environment sound, while the other sound effects will be played by speakers.
To experience a daily routine of a blind person, participants have to cover their eyes and walk along the canes with a tactile stick to spot the surroundings.
The experience includes a walk-through of a supermarket, crossing road, MTR station and a park. The major task for participants is to feed a dog in the park with the kiwi that is purchased from the supermarket in the beginning.
In the installation, participants have to identify the surroundings according to their sense of hearing, and to react to the situation, so as to complete the whole journey. Or else, they will be considered as “Game Over”. After passing all the obstacles, they will arrive the open area, which they can explore the surroundings freely with their sense of hearing and touch.
