FMP (6) — IDEATION 3

Topic: Money
Timeframe: 02/10/23–23/11/23
Team: R.Hodge, R.Suri, T.Singh & Myself

READ EARLIER WEEKS OF THE PROJECT HERE: FMP 1 / FMP 2 / FMP 3 / FMP 4 / FMP 5

OVERVIEW

As a team, we resonated with subjective, and made the decision to move from speculative to reflective. We decided to expand on our learnings from last week, and focus on appreciating the personal response in respect to money, through a reflective audio and a sensory experience.

Experience engages with material and audio to embody the multifacetedness of money and stand in contrast to the digital and formless nature of 21st century money.

DESIGN PROCESS

MULTIFACETED NATURE OF MONEY (AN MULTI-SENSORY REFLECTIVE EXPERIENCE)

The Bittersweet Sonata is a multi-media experience centred around money and the power it can have over us — loathing and adoration, oppression and obsession. It gives two sides of the same coin, embodying a variety of lived experiences in a reflective piece.

participants generously spent their time with us reflecting on the nature of their relationship to money, spending and the produced value. we used these narratives as inspiration for the emotions money embodies — the emotions our audio experiences should evoke

Audio made money personal and emotional — it leans into the human emotional experience, which engages a different sense in an era dominated by visual and digital experiences. Craft reframes money as tangible and slow, shifting the experience out of its context. Material interaction encourages people to think more deeply about our own financial world through the contrast of physicality and emotion.

negative audio experience focused on surfacing and encapsulating the findings, which focused oppressive inescapable feeling associated with money

positive audio experience focused on surfacing and encapsulating the findings, which focused on all that money makes possible

designed artefacts (mixed-media vinyl covers) support the new reflective experience of money, by introducing a tactility and sensory experiences into the reflection

This experience shifts money out of its context, transforming what is now mostly intangible visual interaction, into a auditory and sensory experience. Contrast between ‘the usual’ and ‘the new’ prompts the participants to reflect and reconsider the nature of their own experiences.

We tested our mixed media — audio and sensory — experience with participants, to gauge the relationship between our input and their output i.e. personal reflection.

We conducted 2 rounds of testing with 9 participants total. We created a make-shift record player out of cardboard for the purposes of testing. the prop received positive reactions, confirming our design goal for this artefact — to support immersion and engagement by providing relevant context of the experience.

TESTING ONE revealed — the gap between aim and result. the audio was not immediately clear to understand, but did bring in a sense of anxiety in listeners and made them reflect on the the ‘voice of purchasing’ in their head, as intended. The first iteration of the poem was too metaphorical and the connection to money remained a little lost. TESTING TWO — following iteration — elicited more of our ‘desired’ reactions and reflections — stress and jitter from the continual repetition of purchases (audio) & a sense of love-hate relationship with a partner (poem).

There was a lot of work left, though I would like to assume — given the progress we made between the two iterations — that we were on the right track. However, the process of 'making' and the engagement with critical artefact unearthed a direction, which after weeks of trying&failing finally won us over.

And that was that, this iteration was reflected on, learned from, appreciated, boxed up and abandoned.

✔️ Final failure completed
🏁 Onwards and upwards we go

CRITICAL REFLECTION & LEARNINGS

The outcome of this installation was on the right track, and I have very little to reflect on critically, as the iteration was abandoned in its early stages. The process of production really inspired us, which made us abandon this concept in favour of our final design.

Engagement with materials reintroduced the experience of tactility and emotion, into what can sometimes feel like a purely impersonal aspect of our existence. These critical artefacts evoked engagement with the concepts and ideas expressed through the hand-made objects.

Reflecting on money through practice that is distant to it — slow, intentional, soft, crafted, imaginative, impractical— allowed subjective sentiments and lived-experiences from everyone's individual context to surface quite organically. And so our idea was born: use these findings, to design a set of research artefacts, which prompt personal reflection, situated not within the world of money but within our world of money, to uncover nuanced insights into a complex topic.

READ ABOUT OUR FINAL IDEA — TESTING — EXECUTION — CONTEXT IN THE FOLLOWING WEEKS OF THE PROJECT HERE: FMP 7 / FMP 8 / FMP 9