Lucy Hardcastle Studio created Wetlands, a new interactive ecosystem, poetically visualizing living data and user interactions.
Having used the lockdown period as an opportunity to define the studio’s mission, values, and brand identity, Lucy Hardcastle Studio is unveiling a new website incorporating an interactive feature, based on a data visualization of her brainwaves. Wetlands is a self-initiated project that outlines the vision and approach of the studio. Wetlands the interactive ecosystem based on brainwaves
By combining Lucy’s neurological responses to material tactility with the user’s interactions on the site, the project creates a unique digital landscape that constantly shifts in color and form as the two data sources intersect. Developed in consultation wcolorecialists in the field of neuroscience. The project takes Lucy’s response to sensory materials as its starting point.
A wearable headset was used to track electrical activity in her brain, as well as heart rate and breath rate, during stimulating experiences with different surfaces while in a closed-eye meditative state. These data compile into linear waves, graphs, and cross-sections, which then translate into a 3D landscape. A spectrum of color and wave movement that acts almost like a 3D graph.
Furthermore, this landscape captures Lucy’s responses to a range of material textures. Including glass, suede, acetate, slime, silicone rubber, sandpaper, and silk. Therefore, translated her brainwaves and other bodily data into high points and valleys, rock pools of fluid, and flurries of different colored particles.
Accessing the site, the user is brought into this realm, and encouraged to play with their surroundings. As they navigate the 360º digital space, their interactions disperse color and trigger wave motions in correlation with the data. Therefore, creating mini-ecosystems or tides. The more the user plays with the pools, the more they spread and melt into the landscape. Creating a flooded effect, with the outcome of an ever-changing digital environment.
Finally, more on Archup:
Call for Submissions from the Istanbul Design Biennial: “Designing Resilience”
Health & Environmental Resilience and Livability in Cities (HERL) – The challenge of climate change
