Disconcerted - Week 4
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This is a little map of a space in which disconcerted is actually going to take place in a couple of weeks - I figured this would be a really good way to give an impression of what I'm thinking about in this project.
The concept works like this: users participating in Disconcerted do not know that they are participating. The information about the show is not related, and the events that take place are music/art events with no mention whatsoever of disconcerted. This is important for the setup, because Disconcerted is designed to make participants uncomfortable without their knowledge.
The space would be open for people to leave at any time, and the only thing separating it from the rest of the world is the door through which attendees enter. Any barriers to exit would have to be staged, with a pretense so that people do not know that they're being made to stay.
To the map: There are two types of objects on the map besides the layout: mics and speakers. The premise of this concept is to record conversations as they are happening and play them back several minutes afterwards from a different place in the room, just below ambient noise level.
There are several points of congregation that I mapped out based on the times I've been to the Unknown, specifically next to the bar, on the couches, and in the back areas of the stadium seating. The mics are placed to record localized conversation in the center of areas of congregation (or near to the centers). The speakers are placed to provide a relatively even ability to play back sounds of any kind - crickets or insects are another idea for this layout.
Conversations could be recorded at one place and played back from a different place to subtly confuse participants, or they could be played back in nearly the same place. Both would likely have a similar effect.
I think this is a pretty good example of what Disconcerted tries to be - for the world of disconcerted I'm thinking that the direction is going to be taking this world and having disconcerting events occurring over a period of time, unknown to its inhabitants.