The Euphoric Box

For this project I assembled a box in which I wanted to portray a very substantial emotion and a profound experience. For me euphoria can be associated with a number of virtuous triggers. Most often they are at times of peacefulness, tranquility, sometimes loneliness, profound immersions, and high sensory input. Everyone has something different or perhaps even a different idea of euphoria. It is difficult to force someone into a state of Euphoria which makes this a tricky subject to pin down but in this project I attempted to replicate things that give me a sense of immersive euphoria. A person with an open mind, willingness to be immersed, and perhaps a good taste in music and art should experience what I planned with this box.

The box itself was a giant wardrobe moving box with dimensions 24" x 21"x 48". The box was tall and wide enough for someone to lay down in and not be too cramped. I wanted the person to be laying down because I figured that was what I was doing most of the time in my mind mapping. I also put some pillows and a blanket for extra comfort while laying down. I cut a screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio in the top of the box and put a piece of white butcher paper over to project on. The idea was to make the screen your full view. Inside was my over the ear noise cancelling headphones which I feel are the only way to go to be fully immersed (earbuds don't work for me).

The media I used was from my collection of wallpapers and music that I felt fit together. The idea was to play music that fit the pictures in a way that was striking, engaging, and evocative to the viewer. Initially I wanted to produce a medley that fit a large range of emotions to the pictures. I found I could do a better job by using music I have already found to produce a sense of euphoria. For instance listen to this video from 2:48 - 6:10 and view these pictures Sergio Altamura - Luna

For a different mood, try the jazzy hip hop track at the beginning of this playlist and view these images. This is the kind of stuff I listen to late at night and get a sense of euphoria from Jazzy Hip Hop 

I tried to mix the tracks in a way that flowed together nicely but they were all so different in mood and key that the transitions were not smooth enough and immersion breaking. For the box I used these images in a power point presentation and my mix of music including these songs, but I had so many more pictures and songs to work with. Most of the thought in this went into picking pictures from my hundreds that perfectly fit each of the images. Hopefully you can see how they come off in a different respect when accompanied with different music. Perhaps you felt more immersed in the picture or was immediately overcome with an emotion. When in the box with the headphones on, the goal was to be completely immersed both visually and audibly.

Reception and things to improve: Some of the people that went into the box remarked that it was interesting experience although nobody mentioned a euphoric experience. I don't think I got a large enough sample size to decide if it was a success or not. From experiencing it myself, being in the box  was immersive and made me really focus on the media. Someone mentioned that the viewing screen be more full view, almost like a virtual reality device, which I agree might be the best way to do it. If I were to do this on unlimited budget and resources I would make a VR device. I like to think about the VR chamber in the beginning of the movie Sunshine that helped the astronauts cope with space travel, as an example. Also, the track I made had flow issues and did not sync with the PowerPoint presentation because PowerPoint does not like FLAC files . If I were to make it again I would make a video in which I could sync music to the pictures. Given a person that would be willing to spend a large amount of time in the box, I would have them listen to all the songs I had in full and have them view a lot of the pictures I had to cut.