Atmosphere Project

Our project idea aims to draw an emotional response from participants who are removed from their daily lives for a period of twelve hours overnight and kept in a windowless room, without access to food or toilet facilities, whereby the only other being they come into contact with is a disembodied voice. How would this make them feel? And why? In particular, the lack of multi-media and technology creates an atmosphere in which humans need to face deep down emotions which the aforementioned technology distracts us from in our daily lives. By removing this component, the effects of a 12 hour overnight period in which participants are tired from the day and unable to access the modes of technology they have become so reliant on, could be quite enlightening.

We will be teaming up with La Trobe's psychology students to make sure the experiment is ethically sound. Participants would be properly debriefed with a psychologist in the aftermath of the experiment to prevent any lasting emotional trauma, as well as to gauge their response(s) and the reason(s) behind it.

On the day of the experiment, participants are removed from their daily lives and brought to La Trobe grounds. Each participant is blindfolded and then led to the recording studio. In here we can control the sound, or lack of sound, coming into the room. There are no windows.

Participants are introduced to their only contact for the next twelve hours. A disembodied voice. The voice is female if the participant is male, and male if the participant is female (there may be some variations to see if the gender of the voice affects the participant's response). For the first four hours, the voice is kind and friendly to participants. The voice offers help to the participant in whatever way they may need, such as leading them to things that will help them to pass/survive the time. The aim is to allow the participant to establish a level of trust with the voice. This trust is vital to the results of the experiment. To ensure participants are fully engaging with the experiment, and not planning to simply sleep away the twelve hours, the disembodied voice will become louder and more repetitive during any instance in which the participant looks as if they are starting to disengage, e.g. purposefully trying to sleep, or unknowingly drifting off.

The middle four hours will see the disembodied voice adopting a different attitude towards the participant. The kindness and friendliness will be replaced with a certain amount of distance. The voice will no longer be wholly helpful, and at points when the voice decides to help the participant, it will do so audibly begrudgingly, and with a chiding tone. This should illicit a different response in the participant towards the atmosphere we have created. Will the participant feel betrayed by the change in attitude? Will they feel grateful for the change, as a solution to their boredom? Or will they feel nothing?

By the final four hours, the voice is no longer on the participant's side at all. The voice is openly hostile, and will go from periods of long silence to arguing with the participant. The voice no longer helps the participant find food, or anything to help relieve the boredom. This dynamic continues until the nighttime, at which point the participant is released from the studio and spends time debriefing with a psychologist. The psychologist will establish a response to the experiment from the participant, and afterwards will begin the decompression process so that the participants are fit to return to their regular lives. The experiment will not be harmful enough to produce lasting emotional results in participants; though, ideally, we are hoping that the ramifications of being cut off from technology for 12 hours – and the emotional effects that this could produce – will stay with participants after the experiment concludes.