The Department of Cyber-Therapy
The “The department of CyberTherapy” is a single occupancy experiential installation that, through an embodied experience - the audience is led through a speculative medical treatment of which their existential anxiety will be treated and cured - in an unsettling and dubious manner.
Subsequently, attempting to empower the audience to question the information they are being fed and, therefore, in the process, question what the meaning and value of existence is to them - although the project superficially appears to attempt to cure existential angst through the use of technology and theatrics, it is instead endeavouring to insight a retaliating and questionable response by the audience; inline with the Transformative Experience Design framework: “transformative experiences may be invited or elicited combining interactive technologies, cognitive neuroscience and art.”(Gaggioli, 2015, p.98)
Installation at London College of Communication (2022) By Elliott Hall, Photography by Kaixiang Yang
Playing on the use of the uncanny, the work is situated within an almost ‘Picturesque’ example of an NHS examination room or doctor's office. The experience starts off byf playing into the hand of the padded experience of NHS medical treatment before slowly descending into a dubious and dystopian-esque therapy that makes use of perception-altering medication (placebo) and an experience that alters the embodiment of the audience (through the use of theatrics and VR technology) that will hopefully lead the patient/audience member to a crossroads in which they will question how they truly feel about the information being fed to them - and therefore being led into a moment that allows space to picture their ideal alternative, with the overall aim of creating a pedagogical work that leaves the audience in a new mindset; void of lecturing them in the process (a critical aspect to any ‘educational’ work) evading the trap of hypocritical paradoxical didacticism rife within the political and social art world (Rancière, 2010).
Perceptum Medication, Prescription Form & ID Card (2022) By Elliott HallPhysical to Digital Replication Renders (2022) By Elliott Hall
Final Recording including binaural-audio, headphones are recommended. Due to the increased load on the headset, for the recording stuttering and visual artefacts can be seen, this does not translate to the in-person experience.