Kinetic Spectacle

As technology advances, our daily lives continue to shift further toward the digital. Amidst an unprecedented pandemic, this shift has further exaggerated the way we communicate and interact with one another and the spaces around us. In the possibility that limited physical interaction and social distancing become the new ‘normal’, how can people be encouraged to gather and engage with one another and with the space? How can a space provide users with a transcendent spatial experience that can not be achieved virtually? A space that engages users with its programmatic activities, components, and one another, opens up a world of interactivity that has the ability to forge shared experiences and memories.

In response to this cultural shift, this thesis proposes the idea of the kinetic spectacle. A socially-interactive ‘machine’ that engages users into a collective energy that anticipates and encourages dynamic spatial transformations through human interaction, technology, and movement. Such a design will result in an immersive experience of active space that transcends users into an engaging realm of performance, exhibition, and spectacle, achievable only through the physical.