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Light & Sound Test
Art Project
Creative Direction, Conceptual Design, Nano Banana AI, ElevenLabs
2024
Introduction & Inspiration
Elevators are often overlooked—functional, fleeting, and forgettable. Yet, Marc Augé’s concept of non-places reframed my view of these transitional spaces as zones of anonymity and passive movement. Building on this, recent research by Allen and Mollegaard (2021) reveals elevators as quietly expressive environments, shaped by human behavior and social nuance.
This project emerged from a desire to disrupt that invisibility, to reimagine the elevator as a mirror of modern urban life, revealing tensions between isolation and connection, efficiency and emotion, presence and avoidance in our increasingly automated, hyper-connected cities.
Insight
Participant Selection
Urban dwellers who used elevators at least four times per week were interviewed, with a focus on diverse contexts (residential, corporate, public).
Key Themes
Questions explored perceptions of waiting, elasticity of time, active vs. passive waiting, identity, and hypermodernity. Participants were also asked to characterize elevator encounters in three words.
Insights
Heightened awareness of time, preference for solitude, self-conscious movements, and momentary connections with strangers emerged, highlighting the ambivalence individuals feel in elevators.
Elevator as a Rehearsal Room
An immersive audio-theatrical experience that transforms an elevator into a rehearsal room for the self. Drawing on theories of liminality and identity, the elevator becomes a space of transformation—where participants try on emotional roles, confront personal narratives, and are guided by a voice that acts as both director and inner dialogue.
Concept Realisation Tools - nanobanana.ai, ElevenLabs
