Yesterday I had a very informative and insightful discussion with Sue Thomas, a pioneer in technobiophilia and she actually coined the term! Our discussion can be seen below and I have also typed up some key points from it.
Discussion Points:
- Tragetting sense of smell
- Utilsing perfume spray before food is given out eg: vanilla scent or violet, nothing too over powering that distracts from the food/ drink but something unusual that sets the tone for a natural experience
- Easily removed from a senario unlike diffusers
- Utilsing perfume spray before food is given out eg: vanilla scent or violet, nothing too over powering that distracts from the food/ drink but something unusual that sets the tone for a natural experience
- Technobiophilia experiments
- Irish phone game of differing landscapes, linked to a meaure of oxygen levels to determine the change in stress levels after experiencing nature
- Art project in hospital showing live stream of coast or coutryside and the pateints could choose which. The patients were lukemia patients with their vitals measured constantly, but there were no records taken of the impact of the nature on their stress levels
- Snow ward – Seattle military hospital had to chnage the soilders dressings everyday which caused great pain. So, they developed a VR game to distract them that involved runing and playing in snow, they also sat the soliders in a cold environemnt whilst playing the game. The experiment found that the soliders didnt feel the pain whilst in teh immerisve natural experience!
- Restaurants could measure oxygen levels in an event or experience to see impacts of natural intercations
- Utilise finger clip to measure oxygen levels – talk to medical professionals or medical supply company
- Samsung S8 phone utilise a ‘stressmeter’ on the back of the phones measures the levels of oxygen in the skin which is lower if you are stressed
- Could measure oxygen levels at the table and take the readings when ordering?
- Use of sound in natural experiences
- Contact British Libary and utilse their audio collection, also BBC sound archive
- Radio Lento collect their own natural soundscapes – ask to collaborate?
- Connecting people to water as a natural element
- Implementing a live stream of a wtaerfall into technobiophilic event?
- Book Blue Mind by Wallace Nichols talks on why we are attracted to water
- Even utilsie items associated with water eg: fish net decoartions/ plants associated by water
- Craete that gut reaction of connecting to nature, then the next step can be nudging people to act more sustainably
- Crashing water soundscapes? – relaxing and exciting at the same time?
- Ways to recreate the smells of running fresh water?
- Natural sounds utilsied in spaces
- Bird song boxes – small reminder of nature that connects you when you walk into an unnatural space
- Contact biophilic cities – similar to the journal of biophilic design, but American verison, aks to talk with them if anything similar to my ideas is being done in the US that they know of?
- Look at the likes of cutting edge american innovators eg: silicon valley, portland oregan and california
Reflection
I was so appreciative of the opportunity to talk to Sue as she is so highly respected in the area of technobiophilia. It was brilliant to talk through different academic studies and possible applications of technobiophilia with her. This conversation and the others I have had over the past few days with people like Kristina Libby and Heidi Learaertz have led to great confirmation from my stakeholders that they believe my ideas have the potential to be highly useful, engaging and powerful. This has really inspired me to move into the development of these next ideas iterations of interventions, utilising what I have learnt from my first interventions and building upon the feedback of my expert stakeholders.
Looking towards my next stakeholder meetings of this type, reflecting on my interviewing technique, I feel I need to work to ensure I ask the interviewee more questions to encourage them to talk, as I feel sometimes I fall into the trap of early wanting talk to talk about my ideas and plans which can take over the interview.