Space
This week's assignment is to design something relating to space. I've decided to experiment with the psychology of personal space (known as proxemics)--a topic that frequently comes up living in NYC. To start, I've been doing a bit of research on the topic, including this interesting New York Times article, psychology articles on the topic such as "Intercultural Study of Personal Space: A Case Study" by Catherine Beaulieu in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, and portions of The Hidden Dimension by Edward Hall, the father of proxemic theory.
For the purposes of my design for this class, which I'll describe shortly, I'm working from the basic premise that the average American's minimum comfortable personal space with an acquaintance is 4 feet, and 1.5 to 4 feet with a friend. Allowing for the fact that I'll be testing my object on two random classmates who are accustomed to an crowded urban environment, and already seated in close proximity in the classroom with a mix of acquaintances and friends, I've chosen a distance of two and a half feet for the purposes of this experiment, on the theory that most people in my class would be comfortable sitting face to face with each other at this distance. (It's worth noting here that nationality plays a definite role in proxemics, but because I can not know in advance the nationality of my volunteers, I have not factored cultural influences into my piece.)
The goal of my experiment will be to see what can be done to manipulate the subjects' perception of this space without changing their physical distance from each other. After arranging the two subjects at the proper distance from each other, I'll ask them to report their relative comfort on a scale of 1 to 10: 1 being very uncomfortable, 10 being completely at ease. I will then outfit them with a device that loosely encircles their necks and spans the distance between them with a fabric interconnection, and again ask them to report their relative comfort (the device will not cause physical discomfort, so this should not be a factor in their response). Finally, I will enclose the space between them with another layer of fabric which will connect over their heads, and ask for one last reporting on their comfort level. Again, no physical discomfort will be involved.
I anticipate that the subjects' comfort level will decrease with each step, as the space itself is made more intimate. I do expect that the fact that the subjects' will be the center of attention will also add a bit to their level of discomfort, but I do think there's still some validity and interest to the test. It's also quite possible, though, that I may get two volunteers who know each other well, and therefore find the intimacy of the space manipulation pleasant or fun. Only time will tell... Photos to come.