4. Remembrance - Open Expo Parallel

Remembrance

A Story Adventure in The Peron E

Background

Our interactions with the environment and other individuals simulate action resonance, they link closely with aesthetics empathy. Art experience rely closely on motor and physical perceptions. The neural networks responsible for these sensations are activated during the experience and evoke cognition and memories (1). In traditional exhibitions, artworks were usually displayed inside glass protection unattended by their creators. As new technologies and media integrate more and more into exhibitions, “cold” artworks which only provide visual experience are no longer dominating. Sound, smell, touch or even taste have been introduced to museums and exhibitions. Multisensorial experience and interactions with creators help visitors to learn more and bring more remembrances home.

The NMNT exhibition is a good example of multisensory experience integration. Visitors can get very close interactions with the works and creators. Although some of the works focused on single perception (visual, sound etc.), there is not much limit of other sensations. The visitors are usually guided to perform certain actions but not commanded to actively use all their sensations to experience the works. Therefore, it seems only active stimulants will evoke neural resonance of the audiences. However, in open exhibitions, multi-senses are working in parallel to store and evoke memories unconsciously. Without any effort, some part of the visitors’ body helped to remember their experience and evoke to their own creations afterwards.

This project objected to deliver the existence of multi-sensations in the open exhibition. When doing a puzzle game in parallel to the other location-fixed projects, the visitors were expected to search for clues with their different senses. With active information gathering, more interactions could happen while they were visiting other projects during the puzzle.

Story

A story of Bartholomew (main character)’s memories was designed as the base of this puzzle game. The visitors collect clues to solve puzzles while reading story pieces. Since the story is short, the puzzles themselves are not appearing very obvious but hiding inside the stories to add more thinking and reasoning requirements. The story is divided into 6 parts which is inspired by six different senses we have: visual, sound, introspection, taste, smell and touch. Due to limitation of materials and safety, introspection and taste were only in the story but not in the actual experience. Here below are the story pieces and puzzle walkthrough:

Intro: Pieces of Bartholomew’s story lay somewhere in the Peron E. You may discover his memories during your trip. The first piece is his copied drawing. What would it be?

1. Visual - [I’m always curious about how I remember things. Some parts of my senses seem to be talented. These anatomy drawings helped me to understand what’s going on in my body]

2. Sound – [In my last orchestra rehearsal, the conductor was amazed that I could precisely reproduce the right tempo every time. Well, I played the tempo on my metronome every day and night before I memorized it by heart. It was definitely more difficult than distinguishing timbre.]

3. Introspection – [I like to drink different things with different music. Not sure whether they are good parings though. Recently I am kind of addicted to a new product which reminds me of my favorite flavor.]

4. Taste – [One of them is my favorite drink. It reminds me of my mom. I really like the package of this brand, but when I was little, I thought the lady missed something my mom wears everyday]

5. Smell – [I guess many people remember their mom’s favorite perfume. Actually, I never knew the brand, but I can always recognize when I smell it.]

6. Touch – [Although I’m 52 now, I still need my fluffy while travelling. In the past, my mom always sprays a bit of her perfume on my fluffy, so that I could hug her in my dream. Unfortunately, now I already forgot the feeling of her skin. The fluffy seems holding all our soft memories. Well, hope you can take the time getting “in touch” when people are still around.] 

Walkthrough

Observations and Further inspirations

During the exhibition, different visitors react differently to the requirements of thinking and reasoning. As observed (by me), some visitors expected more intuitive and explicit experience while few others (usually in group of two or three) enjoyed more detailed reading and clue searching. The collaboration and discussion in small groups might be essential to the success of a puzzle experience. That might be a reason for most escape room games to require group participants (2). The attitudes towards puzzle details also depended on how the visitors expected from an exhibition. If the visitors expected the exhibitors to dominate their experience, they would usually appreciate more passive absorption of information (assisted by active stimulants). In future practices, in order to generate adventurous mindsets, the puzzles could ideally include a small “crazy 88” game (tasks to complete) which enhance the interaction between visitors and all the creators. More content collaboration with other projects could also help with the integration of active and passive perceptions.

References

1.     Levent, N., & Pascual-Leone, A. (Eds.). (2014). The multisensory museum: Cross-disciplinary perspectives on touch, sound, smell, memory, and space. Rowman & Littlefield.

2.     Zhang, X. C., Lee, H., Rodriguez, C., Rudner, J., Chan, T. M., & Papanagnou, D. (2018). Trapped as a group, escape as a team: applying gamification to incorporate team-building skills through an ‘Escape Room’experience. Cureus, 10(3).