The concept that I am aiming to convey in my interactive touch project to fit the theme of “how life has changed since coronavirus” is how much quieter the world seems to me. Before the global pandemic, I found myself constantly overwhelmed trying to balance school, work, fun, friends, etc. I was always exploring new places, meeting new people, learning new things, and the world felt very loud. Loud as in busy, demanding, chaotic, yet overly engaging in the best way possible. When the world began to slow down in an attempt to handle the virus, I was no longer feeling overwhelmed trying to stretch myself between different commitments. My world became about me – dealing with my own problems, entertaining myself, and just figuring out how to deal with a world that was suddenly quiet in what it could offer me. Quiet as in lonely, unstimulating, and the little bit of calm that I probably needed more than I thought I did.

As a frequent concert goer, I felt that doing something related to concerts was a good metaphor for the world being “loud”. Additionally, one of the most emotional times of this pandemic for me, or at least one of the first times that I felt how different the world had become, was when I attended a virtual concert for a band that I had seen in person a few months earlier.

My idea is to have three scenes that represent the world at different “volume levels”. The first and loudest scene, will be at a concert. There will background will be actual video from a concert and the focus will be a neon animation outline of a person at the concert. The middle scene (at a medium volume) will be of that same animated figure at a small hangout in an apartment with 8 friends. I am thinking that here they will be singing and dancing as well but in a socially distant style. The final and quietest scene will be of the animated figure watching a virtual concert alone at their desk at home.

The interactive element will be a world volume control that triggers the scene that is played based on the volume it is set at. Currently, I am thinking that this volume control will be attached to the computer display.

This is a very rough example of how the figure will look:

Artist Question: For the audio that I use, does anyone have any suggestions? Right now I’m thinking that there are a couple of options:

1. Playing the same song over the three scenes but the actual volume goes noticeably down at each scene.
2. Playing different levels of chatter/yelling at each scene. So the concert would be super loud and have a lot of yelling, and then the kitchen would be some normal chatter, and the last scene would be basically almost mute.
3. Any other ideas? Thanks!