Design Studio II¶
Drugs¶
It’s no secret that drugs are commonly consumed at music festivals, dance clubs or raves. Quite simply, people do it because it can enhance their experience. But we’re not here to justify, give reasons or explain why people do it. It’s a fact. Drug use exists, and there’s the urgent need to make it happen in the most safe way possible. We take for granted that festival organisers know that drugs will get onto the site, so we believe it’s a responsibility to make sure people remain safe. Denying the issue just causes fatalities.
“Festivals attract a wide array of people not experienced with party drugs. Relying on strangers inside to purchase drugs is a risk factor for purchasing adulterated products. Fear of security/police at festivals leads to risky drug-taking such as ingesting one’s full batch of drugs at the entrance. These risks are compounded by environmental factors including crowding, hot temperature, and lack of water and inadequate medical emergency response.”
We want to help people to make informed and responsible choices, raising awareness about substances in circulation and reducing the chance of drug-related problems.
We hope for a local music policy that doesn’t deny the use of drugs but aims for harm reduction advice and support by showing how to do it safely, giving a non-judgmental service, accessible and available to all.
We are working on informational outputs, some developed as a guerrilla marketing action so to print out posters and to stick them around clubs, bars and discos. Also, connecting stickers to a survey to gather data and to a insta account. We want to create a community.
Mari and I are working on this project together and decided to submit a project for a Sonar open call that gives space to the development of AR/VR design projects!!! Due to feb 26th.
REDUCE THE HARMS If you use, better to:
Be street smart Test the drug Be informed about the correct amount of quantity related to your gender and weight Limit the number of drug per session Limit the quantity Limit how often you do it Stay hydrated Tell at least one person that you’re taking drugs Be in a safe environment, surrounded by people you trust Don’t be afraid to get medical help if you need it
Developments
I’m mainly focusing on the project DRUGS? YOU BETTER KNOW Using AR, VR, and interaction design our project aims to generate a non judgmental and open minded environment to dialogue and get information about drug consumption in an informal, immersive, inclusive and interactive way. It’s no secret that drugs are commonly consumed at music festivals, dance clubs or raves. we don’t want to justify, give reasons or explain why people do it, we just take it as a fact. There are a number of different reasons why people choose to partake in altered mind states when attending such events. Our goal here is to increase the pragmatic conversation pertaining to the recreational use of drugs through interaction design, developing interactive tools to inform as well as gather data on how much do people really know about drugs.
In a nutshell, We want to help people to make informed and responsible decisions, implement a dialogue and conversation about the topic, raise awareness about substances in circulation and reduce the chance of drug-related problems by offering an immersive, visual and fun experience throughout AR, VR and interaction design accessible to all, also to people who do not use drugs.
The infofree warehouse VR immersive experience. Here you are, you enter a warehouse dancing it out. The environment is a bit dark and there’s people around you. You spot some icons that stand out in the crowd and driven by curiosity, you decide to touch them. Our VR immersive experience seeks to simulate what happens in our minds, literally, when consuming drugs at recreational spaces. The user is then placed into a warehouse club environment, with figures dancing. Mixed within the dances, you can see brightly coloured interactive icons. These icons represent different drugs made available in the surroundings. Once you approach the icon, a trump card is pulled, with the name and information for the selected icon. Once you are informed, you are then able to select if you want to consume the substance, or not. If you choose, not to, you will remain in the current environment. If you do chose to take the substance, you are then moved into a different environment representing your “trip”. While we think the concept of cyberdelics is very interesting, we also understand that the stigma for taking drugs is not entirely audio-visual. Thus, rather than imitating a trip, we decided to make the environment inspired by the biological effect of the drug. “The binding of drugs with proteins in the blood stream is an important process in determining the eventual activity and fate of such drugs once they have entered the circulation.” For our environments, we then developed models for the determined proteins that encapsulate each individual drug. The idea is that people also become informed of how the drug interacts with our bodies literally, judgement-fee. The initial catalysis.
The conversation wall Interaction design and AR. The lack of communication and dialogue about drugs brings a huge lack of awareness and information in the topic itself. Also, sharing personal experiences can prevent harm to other people. We wanna help people to communicate their opinion and experiences about drugs in a way that can allow them to feel comfortable in sharing personal opinions and experiences. We designed an interactive board, which has printed 23 statements about substance use or non-use and 9 icons. Under each sentence and icon there’s a long pin. At the beginning of the board there’s a simple question: “Do you do drugs?” and the journey begins by answering this question by choosing magenta loops as a “yes I do” and blue as a “no I don’t”. Users can put as many loops as they want. To allow people to feel more comfortable with their own answers we came up with the idea of the invisible answers. The icons, when scanned, show more deep and intimate statements. Using an augmented reality development package and ARKit, we developed an app which allows users to individually scan each icon, and in return, the app displays the “invisible answers” on the user’s phone. This is to allow people to feel more comfortable and less judged in sharing. The app however, is limited to individual deployment, thus we have to deploy it on each IOS device by building it through XCode. Having said that, the code is currently limited to IOS builds. Depending on the environment that will be available, we will adapt the board: phrases and icons can be either printed on a plywood panel or printed as stickers and attached directly to the wall. Depending on these options, we will understand the resistance of the installation and decide what material to make the magenta and blue loops of. Can be 3D printed in plastic or made out of fabric.
REDUCE THE HARMS If you use, better to:
Be street smart Test the drug Be informed about the correct amount of quantity related to your gender and weight Limit the number of drug per session Limit the quantity Limit how often you do it Stay hydrated Tell at least one person that you’re taking drugs Be in a safe environment, surrounded by people you trust Don’t be afraid to get medical help if you need it
Developments
I’m mainly focusing on the project DRUGS? YOU BETTER KNOW Using AR, VR, and interaction design our project aims to generate a non judgmental and open minded environment to dialogue and get information about drug consumption in an informal, immersive, inclusive and interactive way. It’s no secret that drugs are commonly consumed at music festivals, dance clubs or raves. we don’t want to justify, give reasons or explain why people do it, we just take it as a fact. There are a number of different reasons why people choose to partake in altered mind states when attending such events. Our goal here is to increase the pragmatic conversation pertaining to the recreational use of drugs through interaction design, developing interactive tools to inform as well as gather data on how much do people really know about drugs.
In a nutshell, We want to help people to make informed and responsible decisions, implement a dialogue and conversation about the topic, raise awareness about substances in circulation and reduce the chance of drug-related problems by offering an immersive, visual and fun experience throughout AR, VR and interaction design accessible to all, also to people who do not use drugs.
The infofree warehouse VR immersive experience. Here you are, you enter a warehouse dancing it out. The environment is a bit dark and there’s people around you. You spot some icons that stand out in the crowd and driven by curiosity, you decide to touch them. Our VR immersive experience seeks to simulate what happens in our minds, literally, when consuming drugs at recreational spaces. The user is then placed into a warehouse club environment, with figures dancing. Mixed within the dances, you can see brightly coloured interactive icons. These icons represent different drugs made available in the surroundings. Once you approach the icon, a trump card is pulled, with the name and information for the selected icon. Once you are informed, you are then able to select if you want to consume the substance, or not. If you choose, not to, you will remain in the current environment. If you do chose to take the substance, you are then moved into a different environment representing your “trip”. While we think the concept of cyberdelics is very interesting, we also understand that the stigma for taking drugs is not entirely audio-visual. Thus, rather than imitating a trip, we decided to make the environment inspired by the biological effect of the drug. “The binding of drugs with proteins in the blood stream is an important process in determining the eventual activity and fate of such drugs once they have entered the circulation.” For our environments, we then developed models for the determined proteins that encapsulate each individual drug. The idea is that people also become informed of how the drug interacts with our bodies literally, judgement-fee. The initial catalysis.
The conversation wall Interaction design and AR. The lack of communication and dialogue about drugs brings a huge lack of awareness and information in the topic itself. Also, sharing personal experiences can prevent harm to other people. We wanna help people to communicate their opinion and experiences about drugs in a way that can allow them to feel comfortable in sharing personal opinions and experiences. We designed an interactive board, which has printed 23 statements about substance use or non-use and 9 icons. Under each sentence and icon there’s a long pin. At the beginning of the board there’s a simple question: “Do you do drugs?” and the journey begins by answering this question by choosing magenta loops as a “yes I do” and blue as a “no I don’t”. Users can put as many loops as they want. To allow people to feel more comfortable with their own answers we came up with the idea of the invisible answers. The icons, when scanned, show more deep and intimate statements. Using an augmented reality development package and ARKit, we developed an app which allows users to individually scan each icon, and in return, the app displays the “invisible answers” on the user’s phone. This is to allow people to feel more comfortable and less judged in sharing. The app however, is limited to individual deployment, thus we have to deploy it on each IOS device by building it through XCode. Having said that, the code is currently limited to IOS builds. Depending on the environment that will be available, we will adapt the board: phrases and icons can be either printed on a plywood panel or printed as stickers and attached directly to the wall. Depending on these options, we will understand the resistance of the installation and decide what material to make the magenta and blue loops of. Can be 3D printed in plastic or made out of fabric.
FIRST INTERVENTION
As a first intervention we decided to listen to the voice of Barcelona people. We wanted to be down to earth and just see how people reacted to the simple question of asking them to share their experiences about drugs. We came up with a simple but effective concept: a captivating and appealing sticker to put in target areas, like bathrooms of clubs, bars etc… with a simple question and a QR code that leads to a Google Form where people can anonymously write about some experiences that happened under the effect of drugs.
We received many stories, it was very satisfying realising that people are open to share.
Developments
The project is changing and evolving each week. Now it even changed name and became BEYOND DRUGS.
Beyond Drugs offers a captivating virtual reality experience that intersects multiple concepts, such as protein unfolding and Huxley’s Doors of Perception, to shed light on the often taboo conversations surrounding recreational drug use. The project aims to provide an inclusive and immersive experience to bring attention to the hidden dialogue around drug use.
Drug consumption at music festivals, dance clubs, and raves is a well-known fact, and the project does not intend to justify it. Instead, Beyond Drugs focuses on creating a non-judgmental and open-minded environment that encourages pragmatic conversation around recreational drug use. To achieve this, the project uses interactive design and tools to gather data and inform users of personal experiences related to drug use. Increased dialogue can help reduce stigma and discrimination and acknowledging drug use can help mitigate harm. Beyond Drugs believes that promoting a more accepting and open attitude towards drug use can make a significant difference.
The project is a continuous series of interactive experiences that coexist to enlighten a non-biased dialogue referring to recreational substances. What we would like to present for this Open Call is a virtual reality environment which serves as the complementary piece to a previously performed interactive installation: “the confessionary”. Final exhibition presented in virtual reality is then a piece compiled from audio data previously gathered through the confessionary, working as follows:
- confessionary: audio recording
- audio2face conversation: NVIDIA Omniverse AI used to animate face models with pre recorded audio
- VR experience: animated anonymous faces tell individual and personal stories
The lack of communication and dialogue around drugs often leads to a lack of awareness and information about the topic. At Beyond Drugs, we believe that sharing personal experiences can be a valuable tool in preventing harm to other users. To promote communication and comfortability, we have created The Confessionary - a personal, protected space where users can freely narrate their personal experiences with drugs anonymously. The Confessional is made of plywood, lightweight, and easy to carry around.
All the stories shared in The Confessional are then translated into our VR experience. We recognize that the use of substances is both literary and personal, where one’s experience is only superficially narrated by literature on a substance and its effects. Therefore, we believe that personal conversations are essential when discussing the topic of drugs. When someone wants to try a new recreational substance, one of the first things they often seek is information on the effects and experiences of others. This information is usually found online or from friends. However, we want to provide a safe space for people to share their experiences and create a database of stories which will be exhibited in following installations. We believe in the power of storytelling. Through the power of personal narratives, we hope to promote understanding, reduce stigma and discrimination, and create a more accepting and open attitude towards drug use.
A space to share. VR immersive experience.
As users enter the virtual reality space, they are presented with a room filled with many doors. Each door represents the entrance to a different recreational drug, offering users a range of choices. Upon entering a particular door, users are transported to a room filled with faces that speak about their experiences with the drug. These conversations allow users to explore the positive and negative effects of the drug from the perspective of those who have tried it.
But Beyond Drugs goes beyond mere dialogue. The room also includes the protein structures that receive the drug in our bodies. Users can see the unfolding of these proteins and gain an understanding of how the drug interacts with their body at a molecular level. This experience provides a deeper understanding of the effects of the drug on the body and mind.
The concept of Huxley’s Doors of Perception is also at play in Beyond Drugs. By presenting users with the opportunity to experience different recreational drugs in a safe and controlled virtual environment, the project challenges their preconceived notions of reality and expands their understanding of the world around them. Users are forced to confront the consequences of their actions and explore the consequences of their choices.
In conclusion, Beyond Drugs is a thought-provoking project that combines multiple concepts to bring to shore the hidden conversations around recreational drugs. By using virtual reality to present users with a safe and controlled environment to explore the effects of different drugs, the project challenges their preconceptions and expands their understanding of the world around them. Through the immersive experience, users gain a deeper appreciation of the unfolding of proteins, the Doors of Perception, and the impact of their choices on their mind and body.
SECOND INTERVENTION
Getting high on VR
Mariana and I during our research part started digging down on possible alternatives to offer to people instead of doing drugs, and we ended up in many articles that talked about the concept of getting high on VR. We were particularly interested in the topic and decided to explore it in a first person perspective. We did some experiences like going to the Dalì Immersive Exhibition on Ideal, where part of it is a twelve minute virtual experience and it actually felt like being high, or we watched many many trippy video with the VR in order to reach that particular feeling of highness that we knew just by synthetic drugs.
Getting high on VR is a thing.
FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS
What really gave a big push to the project was the decision to participate to Sonar Open Call for Designers at Sonar By Day. We decided to give it try. Unfortunately we didn’t get selected but it was still very helpful for a realistic development of the project. We collaborated with FabLab Barcelona and participated together. Unfolding Conversations offers a virtual reality experience that intersects multiple concepts, such as processes of protein unfolding and Huxley’s Doors of Perception, to shed light on the often taboo conversations surrounding recreational psychoactive consumption. The project aims to provide an inclusive and immersive experience to bring attention to the hidden dialogue within a confessional setting.
Substance use at music festivals, dance clubs, and raves is a well-known fact, and the project does not intend to justify it. Instead, Unfolding Conversations focuses on creating a non-judgmental and open-minded environment that encourages pragmatic conversation around the use of psychoactive substances. To achieve this, the project uses interactive design and tools to gather data and personal experiences related to the topic. Unfolding Conversations increases dialogue around the topic, which can help reduce stigma and discrimination, mitigating harm.
Our project is an ongoing collection of interactive experiences aimed to facilitate unbiased and open conversations. For this Open Call, we propose a virtual reality environment that complements our existing interactive installation: “The Confessional”. The final exhibition we hereby propose is an interactive installation which allows people to share their experiences with psychoactive substances, and a virtual reality environment that reinforces such a dialogue.
Part 1: The Confessional - an interactive installation performed throughout Barcelona.
The lack of communication and dialogue around psychoactive substances often leads to a lack of awareness and information around the topic. We believe that sharing personal experiences can be a valuable tool in preventing harm to other consumers. To promote communication and comfortability, we have created The Confessional - a personal and protected space where individuals can freely and anonymously narrate their personal experiences with psychoactive substances. The Confessional is made of plywood, making it lightweight and portable. All the stories shared in The Confessional will then be translated into a VR experience, which we aim to exhibit at Sonar+D.
We recognize that the use of substances is both literary and personal, where one’s experience is only partially narrated by literature on a substance and its effects. Therefore, we believe that personal conversations are essential when discussing the topic. Unfolding Conversation thus aims to provide a safe space for people to share their experiences, creating a database of personal narratives which will be exhibited in subsequent installations. Through the power of storytelling, we hope to promote understanding, reduce stigma and discrimination, and create a more accepting and open attitude towards psychoactive substance consumption, especially in a music fest environment where people might be more keen to be involved in the topic, looking for further safety and comfort.
Technologies:
-
Structure:
Pieces were modelled in Rhino and fabricated via laser cut and CNC (plywood). These technologies were facilitated by FabLab Barcelona and the Master in Design for Emergent Futures’ Staff. -
Directional Microphone: A directional microphone will allow us to minimise unwanted background noise or interference when recording the personal experiences. This provides for minimal post-processing and cleaner audio data, increasing the animation precision of the audio2face animations.
The Directional Microphone then became an iPad and an App that we developed.
Part 2: A space to share. VR immersive experience.
This is the second stage of our interactive series Unfolding Conversations, where we materialize the stories we have collected in the confessional via a virtual reality experience. Here we aim to unfold conversations on psychoactive substances and its widespread recreational consumption, guiding our users as follows: As users enter the virtual reality space, they are presented with a room filled with many doors. Each door represents the entrance to a different recreational substance, offering users a range of choices. Upon entering a particular door, the user is transported to a room filled with faces that narrate personal experiences related to the substance. These conversations allow users to explore the wide range of effects of the substance from the personal perspective of those who have experienced it.
But Unfolding Conversations goes beyond mere dialogue. The room also includes the protein structures that receive the substance in our bodies. Users can see the unfolding of these proteins and understand how the substance interacts with their body at a molecular level. This experience provides a deeper understanding of the effects of the substance on the body and mind. The concept of Huxley’s Doors of Perception is also at play in Unfolding Conversations. By presenting users with the opportunity to experience different conversations in a safe and controlled virtual environment, the project challenges their preconceived notions of reality and expands their understanding of the world around them. Users are encouraged to confront the consequences of their actions and explore the consequences of their choices.
In conclusion, Unfolding Conversations is a thought-provoking project that combines multiple concepts to bring to shore the hidden conversations around recreational use of substances. By using a physical installation and a VR immersive experience, we aim to present users with a safe and controlled environment to investigate the effects of different substances in an innovative manner. By challenging their preconceptions of the world around them, we invite users to gain a different perspective on the impact of substance intake on both their mind and body.
THIRD INTERVENTION
As a third intervention we were planning to participate to Mostra Festival in Hangar on April the 6th and 7th, to exhibit The Confessional in order to gather more experiences, but unfortunately both me and Mariana were sick after the Research trip to El Hierro so we didn’t make it there either. The only context were we actually used The Confessional was during the Design Dialogues II and we gathered some experiences by the people who decided to share.
https://www.artsy.net/artwork/carsten-holler-pill-clock
Reflections¶
This term, which in a way felt very short because I found myself with many things to work on, was very sperimental (finally hands on!) and got me to the point of facing reality in multiples ways: - Nothing is still, everything keeps evolving: for the first time I worked as almost a full time job on a project, and I was surprised by the fact that every time that we felt that we arrived somewhere, everything was changing again: us, our ideas, the project itself. Unfolding Conversations evolved day by day and us with it. Sometimes this process was frustrating because it never gave us time to rest, on the other hand it was really satisfying to face all this issues and, in a way or another, always sorting them out. P.S. Unfolding Conversations is still work in progress! - Working opportunities: deciding to submit the application to Sonar helped us to push the project further and to work with a lot of effort on it, also jumping on stuff that we didn’t know before and so developing new skills; on the other hand, being rejected was a punch in the face, especially after all the effort. We were hoping to give life to Unfolding Conversations and show it to a wide public but, for now, this won’t happen. Facing this limit is challenging but also educating.
Alternative Presents¶
Throughout our third intervention we manage to create a collective, but personal, space for people in order to support our alternative present. The Confessional gave people the opportunity to reflect, open up and talk about drug experiences but still respecting privacy, so in a private and anonymous way. Also the stickers around the city connected to the Google Form was a way to break a wall, increase the dialogue, have people feel comfortable with sharing personal experiences. These processes are the first part of our strategy for creating Alternative Presents: we first gathered data, engaged with people, saw and studied reactions, to be more aware on how to move further.