Hermes

by Felipe Cardona

Hoe kan een ervaring de gebruiker aan het denken zetten over hoe ze hun leven zouden leven als ze een tweede kans zouden krijgen?

Storytelling | Near Death Experience | Installatie

Realization

Sometimes we focus so deeply on what it is we are working on that we forget that life is more than our work. Sometimes we realize that our work is not valued or that our job didn’t live up to be what we thought it would be. And it is through this realization that we decide that something needs to change. We just don’t know what or how it needs to change.

It is then that we embark on an exploration. An exploration of where we would like to go, what we would like to change, and how we would like to both work and live differently.

Near-Death Experience

During our exploration, we will seek different perspectives on our work and life in general. Many times the exploration is done through a literal journey where we explore different countries and cultures so we can create contrast between other people’s lifestyles and ours and in doing so we gain a different perspective on our own life.

But many times we don’t know exactly what we are looking for and that is why it is important to carry with us a map. Not of where we want to go but why we are leaving in the first place.

This map carries our questions and objections with our current work and lifestyle.

One of the ways we know someone can define this very clearly is through a Near Death Experience or NDE as mentioned in Viktor Frankl’s book “A man’s search for meaning”. By accepting the idea of death we are simultaneously liberated from our fears and free to look at our own life from a different perspective and to clearly define what it is we find important.

A key aspect of an NDE is the fact that we return from the dead. This provides us with a second chance at life and because we have now gained a new perspective on life, we now have a higher sense of what Viktor calls “Responsibleness”.

Responsibleness is the act of taking accountability for one's actions and in doing so doing everything with strong consciousness.

Installation

This installation aims to help the user gain this responsibleness through an experience that takes key aspects of an NDE and uses them through storytelling to achieve the same goal without any of the physical or mental dangers of an actual NDE.

Felipe as a designer

It's funny but before committing to this project I realized I wasn't going to make it if I didn't take a moment to accept that my identity must evolve. By not accepting I am a designer, I am not allowing myself to design.

So this posed the question, what kind of designer do you want to be? I realized this would be determined by my own experiences and aspirations. Then I came across a video of Chris Do in which he speaks about the value of designers.

He mentions how one might execute a design in photoshop which was thought of by someone else. In this case, you are just the button pusher. On the second level, we find a designer who can make a decision as to how something has to be designed. Whether this means coming up with a color pallet that communicates simplicity or determining which shapes work best.

But on the top level, we find the designer who is able to help themselves or their client envision why they should design something in a certain way. This is the designer who might tell apple that everything they design needs to be as simple as possible because their vision is that the computer shouldn't make you feel stupid, It should make you feel smart. And keeping it simple is the way to do that.

It is the type of designer who can help you find out who you are before you know it.

This is the type of designer I aspire to be.

Which is why this project seeks to help others live their life in a more conscious way.

Phases of development subjects go through. The phases have been determined by accounts of multiple subjects.
Timeline of the experience.
The script.