Tina's Portfolio

No pictures, no sound, and no voices in your head.

No visual memory of your past, no visual imagination

of your future. Sounds extraordinary, but for some people, it's everyday life.

Danlei Fu

Goulong Wang

Martin Wehl

ui design

3D design

Project description

Aphantasia - interactive exhibition

"The Inner Eye" is an interactive experience that invites visitors into the unique mental world of people with aphantasia. By exploring how they perceive, remember, and imagine differently, the exhibition offers a new perspective on how diverse human cognition can be.

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"The Inner Eye" is an interactive exhibition that depicts the everyday lives of people with aphantasia, explaining the differences in cognitive processing and experience. It encourages visitors to see through the eyes of those affected by aphantasia.

Research

Our goal

In our research, we recognized the need for expert input due to the recent and inconclusive nature of the topic since 2015. Notably, a researcher at the University of Bonn, specializing in visual imagination, including Aphantasia and Hyperphantasia, is personally affected, and we've secured an interview. Simultaneously, we identified two individuals impacted by Aphantasia, aiming to capture their compelling stories for our exhibition.

Our goal was to educate visitors and raise awareness about the topic by showcasing the everyday experiences of those affected. It was important to us to highlight the differences in thinking and visual imagination between those affected and those who are not. Visitors should be able to empathize with the mindset of those affected and see through their mental eye.

Additionally, we aimed to explain the scientific aspects of Aphantasia as clearly as possible.

Metaphorical menus

We represented our menu as a room with clickable items showcasing Leni. Scientific aspects are visualized as Leni's brain, daily life and thoughts in a diary, the exhibit as a box, and testing methods as glasses. All items are tangible, except for the playful display of the brain on the screen, as creating a 3D model proved time-consuming.

Exhibit

During our conversation with Leon, who does not have complete Aphantasia, the idea for our interactive exhibit emerged, aiming to illustrate the lack of visual imagination in individuals with Aphantasia. Leon shared with us that when he tries to imagine a chair in a room with a window, he is unable to see both elements simultaneously. Instead, he can only visualize one at a time, either the chair or the window, in a given moment. Leon likened his method of visualization to the approach used in children's books, where specific things are observed with a flashlight.

Navigation

In our exploratory exhibition, visitors are free to choose the sequence without any explicit guidance. However, for sections without screens, we have designed small orientation aids to help guide visitors through the next steps.

Interactive learning

Besides the interactive peephole with self-controlled lighting, we made the scientific section playful by drawing inspiration from the flashlight concept. Visitors engage in tasks where they identify connectivity weaknesses between brain regions by moving an abstract flashlight or magnifying glass.

Our process in photos