Salomé Chatriot

Distal Extension

FILE SAO PAULO 2018
Electronic Language International Festival

Abstract:
The global context of personal and intimate data diffusion and the associated challenges enabled me to open a discussion on the contemporary medical sector and on the cognitive evolutions linked to the development of new technologies.
This Rube Goldberg machine shows a chain reaction similar to the breath’s journey within the human body, thanks to the combination of electronic devices and a person’s sensory input. The spectator corporally extends himself spatially thanks to the real time interaction of his main vital functions with a physical and digital environment.
“Distal Extension” is about confronting people to the same cognitive mechanisms virtual reality generates. Under normal circumstances, the brain knows the limits of its body and this process is called distal psychology attribution. The goal was to built a physical immersive environment that combines electronic and digital elements to extend spatially the user’s corporal limits, without using VR which interferes with the distal psychology attribution by giving to the users new capabilities in a virtual world. The machine externalizes vital functions through movements, digital visuals and mechanical sounds in the form of a chain reaction that reproduces the journey of oxygen in our body. People and machine are merging together, in the way transhumanists imagined connected environnements at their time.
“Distal Extension” is a criticism of the way people consume data, and a projection in space of the user’s intimacy through the externalization of his own vital functions.

Credits: ECAL (University of arts and Design of Lausanne)

Biography:
Freelance Interaction designer and digital artist, Salomé Chatriot graduated from Ecal in Media & Interaction Design. Her practice oscillates between building physical installations and creating virtual environments that are taking shape in 3D photography, video, augmented or virtual reality. She exhibited her work from Paris to San Francisco passing by London, Lausanne and Milan and contributed for several magazine publications.