Blind Dating Market Festival
Read case studySix connected scenes explore how self-presentation, conditional matching, and social judgement shape intimate relationships.
XR / Interaction · Collaborative project / 2024
The Big Bang Stigma
An interactive exploration of labels, bodies, and the gaze
OVERVIEW
Overview
How does an illness become a social label? This project explores stigmatisation, entertainment, and romanticisation through connected scenarios that reveal how labels shape opportunity and self-expression.
- My contribution
- Interaction and visual design within a collaborative project
- Project stage
- Research translation, experience concept, and visual prototypes
- Deliverables
- Experience journey, interaction mechanisms, virtual environments, and livestream visuals
01 Question & intent
The research examines representations of illness in employment, social media, and popular culture. A label may become a barrier in recruitment, material for a performance, or an aesthetic symbol.
The aim is to let participants experience connections between these judgements. Identities and scores are elements of the narrative, rather than medical assessments.
02 From research to experience
Stigmatisation
Reduce an individual to a label and explore how that label influences recruitment decisions.
Entertainment
Turn bodies and behaviour into objects of viewing, instruction, and rating.
Romanticisation
Turn accumulated data into an aesthetic portrait and question the packaging of identity.
03 Key interaction decisions
A continuous journey connects different media. Identity and behaviour from one stage feed into the next, so the effects of a label accumulate.
Identity generation
Questionnaire and facial inputs form the proposed entry point for generating a fictional profile.
Virtual recruitment
Word selection, time pressure, and biased scoring make abstract recruitment judgements tangible.
Livestream performance
Design relationships between audience instructions, ratings, and bodily feedback, exploring Kinect and pressure inputs.
Identity portrait
Carry accumulated information into the final visual result, revealing how a person is viewed and reconstructed.
04 Environments & visual prototypes
05 Validation & reflection
The available material documents research translation, interaction concepts, and visual prototypes. These show how a social question can become an experience, but do not establish a change in participants’ attitudes.
Future evaluation should examine whether participants understand connections between stages, recognise scoring as a portrayal of bias, and can clearly exit or find explanations. Feedback from people with different backgrounds is also essential.
