Research Note #01: Embodied Perception Lab #01
What Value Might Embodied Perception Hold in Future Society?
Introduction
This project began with a question that emerged through the methodologies of Futures Studies, which I encountered in the Design Futures course.
As AI and algorithms continue to develop, we are becoming increasingly capable of making efficient and optimized decisions.
At the same time, I began to feel concerned that the human process of experiencing the world through the body—of hesitating, encountering uncertainty and chance, and creating meaning—may gradually be moving away from the center of society.
What concerns me most is the possibility that the value of perception and meaning-making cultivated through embodied experience may be replaced by data, optimized answers, and codified knowledge.
If this happens, our understanding of life, existence, and even what it means to be human may fundamentally change in the future.
In response to this concern, this research asks:
How might embodied perception transform the relationship between the self and the world? What value might it hold in future society?
Embodied Perception Lab #01 was conceived and realized as the first practical exploration of this hypothesis.
1. How I Used Futures Studies
In the Design Futures course, I learned to use futures thinking not simply as a way to predict the future, but as a method for questioning the present from multiple perspectives.
Causal Layered Analysis, or CLA, had a particularly significant impact on the direction of this research.
Initially, I was concerned that the development of AI was causing a loss of embodiment and human agency.
However, as I worked through CLA, I began to see that the core issue might not be technology itself, but the worldviews and values that we unconsciously share and accept as natural.
For example, values such as efficiency, optimization, and the belief that obtaining the correct answer as quickly as possible is inherently good were not created by technology alone.
They are assumptions that we have collectively accepted and reinforced within society.
This shift in perspective moved the focus of my research away from the simplified idea that “AI is taking embodiment away from us.” Instead, I began to ask:
What kinds of worldviews make
the value of embodied experience less visible?
Through the use of Three Horizons and the Futures Triangle, the project also moved away from positioning embodied art in opposition to technology.
Instead, it developed toward an exploration of the value that embodied perception might hold within future society.
2. The Purpose of Embodied Perception Lab #01
The aim of this Lab was not simply to present a finished work.
It was to design a space in which sharing embodied experiences could produce changes in the participants’ own perception.
The project began with the concern that when efficiency and optimization become accepted as basic social values, existing ideas about life and happiness may also be absorbed without sufficient questioning. As a result, people may have fewer opportunities to form their own questions or imagine alternative futures.
In this research, I understand art as a medium through which we can encounter, and partially experience, the values, cultures, and experiences of others through the body.
I proposed that embodied artistic experience can create an encounter with the unknown, offering an opportunity for new perceptions or questions to emerge not only through intellectual understanding, but through bodily experience.
For this reason, the event did not present a single completed work.
Instead, it created an environment in which multiple artistic forms could intersect:
aerial performance
cello
DJ performance
projection mapping
improvisational sessions
These elements were structured as one continuous experience.
After the performances, an open discussion was held, allowing participants to put their bodily experiences into words and share them with others.
This process of verbalization and exchange was also positioned as part of the research.
3. What Was Unexpected
What struck me most was that participants spoke less about the content or meaning of the performances and more about the experience itself.
After the event ended, many participants remained in the space and continued talking spontaneously.
In the post-event feedback, many comments focused not only on the meaning or narrative of the work, but on elements such as:
the way the space was perceived
relationships with others and with the environment
the embodied feeling of participation
the integration of multiple artistic forms
the freedom created through improvisation and experimentation
This was unexpected for me.
In my previous experience, conversations following dance performances often focus on narrative, technique, choreography, or the intended meaning of the work. In this case, however, many participants spoke about what they themselves had experienced, how the space appeared to change, and how their role shifted from spectator to participant.
4. Perceptual Changes Reflected
in Participant Responses
The post-event feedback revealed several recurring tendencies in the ways participants understood their experience.
4.1 From Spectator to Participant
Mike described the event as follows:
“It went from audience viewing event to an audience participation event.”
Danny similarly reflected:
“The experience encouraged everyone to participate.”
These comments suggest that the event did not remain a one-directional viewing experience. Instead, the audience became actively involved as part of the space and the unfolding experience.
What occurred may have been more than the simple introduction of participatory programming.
Participants may also have experienced a shift in how they understood their own position—from being someone who watches the work to someone who contributes to the formation of the event itself.
4.2 A Change in the Perception of Space
Vidak wrote:
“It changed the way I viewed the venue itself.”
He further stated:
“The environment became an active participant in storytelling.”
William also commented:
“The projection mapping definitely changed the perception of the white space.”
These responses suggest that the participants perceived not only the bodies of the performers, but the entire environment—including image, sound, light, and architecture—as an active element within the experience.
The venue, which might ordinarily function as a background or container for a performance, was transformed through projection, sound, and movement.
It became part of the storytelling and part of the perceptual experience itself.
4.3 Multiple Art Forms Perceived as a Single Experience
Participants described cello, dance, projection, and electronic music not as separate programs, but as elements of one integrated experience.
Vidak wrote:
“Music, movement, technology, and architecture all came together in perfect harmony.”
Danny also commented:
“The music was emotionally moving. The dance was impressive.”
These responses suggest that what remained with participants was not only an evaluation of the individual works or techniques, but the larger experience created through the intersection of different media.
4.4 A Space for Experimentation and Play
Danny wrote:
“I really enjoyed the freedom of the night, how people experimented and played.”
Chi reflected:
“It reminded me how important it is to be fully present and enjoy each moment as it unfolds.”
These comments suggest that the Lab was experienced not as an event in which completed works were presented for passive viewing, but as an environment in which performers and participants could engage spontaneously, experiment, and share what emerged in the moment.
Chi’s emphasis on being fully present also suggests that embodied experience may have redirected attention toward the immediate time and space of the event.
5. Feedback from Design Futures Peers
After presenting this research in the final Design Futures presentation, I received thoughtful feedback from classmates, offering perspectives different from those of the event participants.
One classmate described the project as:
“an investigation of what’s sacred.”
They reflected that, even as technology continues to transform society, the human need for performance and theater does not appear to be diminishing.
This response suggests that the project was understood not only as an inquiry into embodiment and perception, but also as an exploration of dimensions of human experience that cannot be fully explained through efficiency, optimization, or rationality alone.
Another classmate responded strongly to the insight developed through Causal Layered Analysis (CLA)—that futures are shaped not only by technological development, but also by underlying worldviews, myths, and values.
They also reflected that, although AI may make life more convenient, people may increasingly rely on external systems for decision-making, resulting in fewer opportunities to ask questions for themselves.
A third classmate was particularly interested in the research methodology rather than the artistic outcome itself.
They asked how the audience's experience had been designed, how participants moved through the process of discovery, and how the conceptual framework had been introduced within the space.
This feedback shifted my attention from the artwork itself toward the design of the experience as a research methodology.
It also suggested that future iterations of the Lab should document not only the artistic outcomes, but also the design process that enables perceptual change.
Taken together, these responses indicate that Embodied Perception Lab #01may be understood not only as an artistic practice, but also as an experiment in Futures Studies, Design Research, and experience design.
6. Discussion
The participant responses suggest that people spoke more specifically about how they perceived the space and their own role within it than about what they thought in an abstract or conceptual sense.
The following changes appeared repeatedly in their responses:
the venue looked different
the environment felt like part of the story
their position shifted from spectator to participant
different art forms were perceived as one integrated experience
they experienced freedom through experimentation and improvisation
their attention was drawn toward the present moment
These responses can be understood as indications of perceptual change involving space, relationships with others, relationships between artistic forms, and the participant’s own position within the event.
This suggests that Embodied Perception Lab #01 may have functioned not as a work presenting a specific answer or interpretation, but as an opportunity for participants to reconsider their relationship to the space, to others, and to their own experience.
At the same time, the current feedback primarily documents changes in perception and awareness that occurred during or immediately after the event.
It does not yet provide sufficient evidence of what specific questions emerged for participants, or how the experience may have influenced their later thinking or actions.
For this reason, the relationship between perceptual change and the formation of new questions remains an area for future investigation.
The Lab also generated another question concerning the relationship between artistic experience and dialogue.
Artistic experience may unsettle perception and create an opportunity to encounter the world differently.
However, a single experience may not be enough for that disruption to develop into a lasting question within a person’s life.
An environment in which dialogue can continue after the event—and in which questions can be shared, revisited, and allowed to develop over time—may play an important role.
This point was not demonstrated by the current Lab. Rather, it is a new hypothesis that emerged from this project and from my broader experience in artistic practice.
7. Toward the Next Lab
Embodied Perception Lab #01 represents the first stage of this research.
The project suggests that embodied artistic experience may alter how participants perceive space, relate to the environment, and understand their own position within an event.
However, this first Lab did not establish whether temporary perceptual changes can develop into lasting questions, more active forms of reflection, or changes in behavior.
Future research may include:
conducting interviews not only immediately after the event, but several weeks later
comparing responses from first-time participants and those with previous experience of embodied performance
changing the spatial structure and forms of participation, and documenting the differences
comparing experiences with and without a facilitated discussion
investigating how continuing dialogue influences the interpretation of an experience
recording the specific questions that emerge for participants
tracing how those questions change over time
This project also revealed the potential to design “viewing” and “dialogue” not as separate activities, but as parts of one continuous research process.
Future Labs may combine performance, dialogue, documentation, and revisiting over time in order to investigate how perceptions and questions that emerge through an experience are transformed and developed through exchange with others.
Art may be more than a means of presenting answers. It may become a space in which people reconsider their relationship to the world through the body, and in which the questions that emerge can be developed together with others.
The next Embodied Perception Lab will continue to investigate this hypothesis through both practice and documentation.
