Fantasy Device — Intelligent Wall
In today’s assignment, I had to design a fantasy object on the theme of intelligence. My object is an intelligent wall.
I prefer to differentiate between intellect and intelligence — intellect being simply the rational scalpel of logic and reason, whereas intelligence being a more amorphous self-awareness that can respond to the world around it. Intelligence acts in relation to itself, whatever “it” may be.
So how would a wall — if intelligent — respond to someone in front of it? To a human, a wall means a boundary. Whether that be between the one room and another, home and street, or between two nations. Establishing boundaries shapes an identity, in fact all identities are beautiful walled gardens cared for by intelligent gardeners. Thus, I thought it would be interesting, for my fantasy object, the wall, to display intelligence by reconfiguring the human experience of boundary.
I added another dimension to this. What if there was a chip or sensor for detecting brain activity connected to the wall? Based on the brain activity of the human standing in front of the wall, it would project images on itself in response to that . One key aspects of the brain that generates our identity is the Default Mode Network (DMN). When the identity starts dissolving, either during a psychoactive experience or spiritual experience, it is seen that the Default Mode Network is becoming connected to more parts of the brain by breaking out of its usual neural pathways.
Using this kind of information, the wall would display images of openness or closing — reconstructing the experience of boundary in real-time as per the brain activity of the human. The attempt is to evoke changes in the human experiencing the wall.
For example, maybe there is a window on the wall. Then the window starts growing into a door. The landscape beyond the window could keep changing as well. Perhaps, another wall in front of the window appears. Or maybe it expands into an open field, blue sky. A crack appears on the wall. It starts crumbling and new imagery appears behind the wall. Lots of possibilities that can be programmed to respond to different brain states.
There could be various degrees to the dimensionality of the wall. It would respond according to patterns of neural activity. The goal would be to evoke an almost subliminal, self-created experience based on one’s own sense of boundary and dissolution.
