project 1_ Caught in the Headlights

The environments we inhabit have transformed at an extraordinary pace.

This "evolutionary mismatch" (Nesse & Williams, 1994) highlights the growing gap between what our minds and bodies are shaped for and the complex environments we now occupy.
Life today is characterised by convenience.

Technology promises greater efficiency, ease, and more time, yet the space it creates is rarely left empty it is simply filled with the next demand.
Smart devices now dominate much of our daily experience, with constant notifications and updates weaving themselves into our cognitive, biological and psychological rhythms.

But alongside this push for ever greater convenience, in person interaction is becoming more fragmented as responsibility is increasingly being shifted further onto the individual.

Perhaps some of us are unconsciously finding ways to navigate this new world. But for a growing number of us, it is creating a daily landscape of frustration, overwhelm, fatigue, and emotional dis-regulation and in our need to rationalise our response, many of us appear to be turning inward to "self", looking for answers as to why we are struggling to find calmness and clarity.

Through light and sound this installation seeks to explore the sensory relationship and tensions between "self and the modern environment during a typical day.

It asks us to consider the ways in which it impacts our internal self and our neurobiology.

What is our internal response? How does it make us feel?

Do we notice any particular emotion?

Can we remain inside our window of tolerance?