Zixi Wang 300092927
CCDN 231 Project 2
The chosen experiment looks at changing the context of the activity of taking the elevator to produce the mood of comfort. It used this material subject to prove that designers can influence people’s sensory and emotional responses. Seeing a beanbag in the elevator motivated people to sit and make themselves comfortable.
According to Crowley (2001, p.142), "comfort is a modern incarnation of self-conscious satisfaction with the relationship between one’s body and its immediate physical environment." A beanbag is a sealed bag containing dried beans and PVC pellets which moves with the sitter to provide a more seating arrangement (Vink, 2005). It offered participants more flexibility in sitting positions, allowing them to adjust their bodies comfortably and relax. Comfort is not a structure of feeling that we would commonly associated with taking the elevator. However, putting a beanbag in the elevator not only provided a comfortable environment, but also enabled the participants to relax
The beanbag experiment as Crowley (2001) described, was an attribute and comfort applied to a middle ground between necessity and luxury. When take the elevator as a routine activity, it is normal to stand and do not expect to sit. Based on the experiment, 10 participants found that comfort was more related to relaxed, at ease, restful, calm and safe when they experienced the beanbag. The feeling of comfort was mainly determined by the comfort of the backrest and by the softness of the seat. When the elevator was moving, sitting on the beanbag provided the participants unusual experiences and unexpected mood of safety. The bean bag experiment provided a common humanity on the basis of physical comfort, most participants point out the comfort of taking elevator is taken to a new level, to create something new entirely. The routine experiment can be destructive, We see the creation of a new form in this experiment of comfort is the carrier of change, and this experiment is an insight to the relationship of a greater structure of feeling. As Williams (1961) describe: "Structure of feeling is as firm and definite as ‘structure’ suggests, yet it operates in the most delicate and least tangible parts of our activity."
This designed sensory experiment by putting a beanbag in the elevator has proven that a structural feeling of comfort can operate in the most delicate and least tangible part of seating. Comfort as feelings of relaxation and well-being does not often exist in the elevator culture. This experiment allows for the subject to break from the layers of everyday conformity, the becoming communication of social character. williams(1978) states "I think it is a very deep and very wide possession, in all actual communities, precisely because it is on it that communication depends. " At the cultural level, changing the qualities of material objects such as the comfortable beanbag, the community who often take the elevator will feel a sense of temporality, randomness, almost like at home. My sensory experiment justified the aesthetic design of elevator in addition to its physical features may makes the communication possible in the deep community.
References:
Shove, E. (2004) Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience: The Social Organisation of Normality. London: Berg
Crowley, N. (2001) The Invention of Comfort: Sensibilities and Design in Early Modern Britain. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
Williams, R. (1961) The Long Revolution. Harmondsworth: Penguin
Vink, P. (2005) Comfort and Design. U.S.: CRC Press
