WAITING ROOM / Immersive Art for Wellbeing

An exhibition of Immersive Art using dynamic light. The exhibit will display a range of art by six artists who use light, shadow, and movement to create experiences for the viewer that mesmerize, enchant, and captivate. Also included will be the work of the winning entries of the Immersive Arts for Health Student Design Competition organized by the Jefferson Center of Immersive Arts for Health (JCIAH), a design, research, and academic initiative dedicated to studying the impact of dynamic and interactive art + design on healing. 

Each art installation will be set up as a “waiting room” for the audience to become immersed in the experience, with the intention of calming, inspiring, transforming. 

Merging Art, Technology, and Science

Research shows that art can have a positive impact on human health, specifically in healthcare environments. Most existing research focuses on static art (paintings, prints, or sculpture) or, more recently, Distraction Therapy with the use of virtual reality which is showing promising benefits in pain management and lowered anxiety. One of the main features of this method is the creation of an immersive experience. 

We, at JCIAH, believe similar outcomes, could be achieved with dynamic or interactive art that “immerse” the patient in such a way as to improve the overall healthcare experience, resulting in an improved physiological and psychological impact. By making the artwork dynamic, it becomes more immersive, by removing the need for a VR headset, the potential impact could affect more visitors across multiple platforms. Also, unlike VR Distraction Therapy, the patient could, through adaptations of interactive design, choose their level of engagement, from simple observation, to co-creation, to full immersion, thus adding a level of agency to the experience, allowing the visitor to have a sense of control over certain aspects of their environment, which is often a source of anxiety during patient visits.

“Access to positive distraction techniques, together with a sense of perceived control over the environment results in lower stress and improves overall patient well-being.”                                                                                               Ulrich 1984, 2004

Art’s Impact on Health

Artists and Interactive Designers have been using light as a medium to create dynamic sensory experiences since the 1960’s. Solid State Lighting, coding, and digital projection mapping has amplified the possibilities. These types of immersive experiences demand a level of commitment from the viewer, more than just 'passing by,' whereby the viewer allows their senses to be engaged, thus altering their perception of their environment. It takes an effort to be transformed, you have to give the time to really feel the art, you have to become immersed.

In healthcare environments where patients are often confined in a setting for extended periods of time, this type of immersive experience is not only potentially beneficial as a stress reducing intervention, but through interactive technology may offer the patient a level of agency over their environment.

“…art’s inherent ability to create experiences, generate reflection, and stimulate discussion is crucial to patient well-being.”               Heslet & Dirckinck-Holmfeld 2007

The arts and aesthetic experiences impact human biology and behavior in ways that differ markedly from any other health intervention. Scientific studies demonstrate that many art modalities act on complex biological systems and mechanisms to generate both physiological and psychological effects. Science and technology make possible the ability to understand and measure the biological effects of the arts and aesthetic experiences on individuals and populations. 

“There are artists who create artwork for their own healing, … there’s a whole other area and field of artists who can be sensitive enough to what others need and actually create artwork that can provide a (intentional) resonance that exists in and of itself … Although artwork of any kind can change the hospital experience, art with (this) intent has the power to transform the hospital experience.”                                                  (Rollins, 2021)

As part of ongoing research by JCIAH, viewers will be able to take part in a survey to collect feedback on their individual experiences of the installations.  An open discussion on the research behind the exhibition, and how the individual artists are creating immersive experiences to engage, and calm the viewer is scheduled to take place (insert date) during DesignPhiladelphia at HOT•BED Gallery.  We hope this exhibit opens up dialogue and possibilities about the role immersive art might have in creating environments that help us heal, especially in times like these.

ABOUT Alyson denny

Alyson Denny manipulates light experimentally to make abstract still photographs and moving images. She is interested in the raw emotional power of light, and its effect on mood and energy. 

Denny has a background in theatrical lighting and projections. She has been a performing member of the Joshua Light Show since 2008, and in that capacity has performed improvised light abstractions with numerous musicians, including Terry Riley, Lou Reed, and Oneohtrix Point Never.

She has shown her photography regularly, and has been reviewed by the New Yorker and the New York Times. One of her photographs was chosen for the cover of the fifth edition of Robert Hirsch's textbook, Exploring Color Photography. 

Her moving images have been installed in two residences in NYC. One of her moving images is on permanent display in the lobby of Radian, a residential tower in Boston.

Denny studied physics and filmmaking at Harvard. She has guest-lectured widely and is currently on the faculty at the School of Visual Arts, NYC.

about Aidan Fowler

Aidan Fowler’s aim as an artist is to push the viewer into an altered state where they can step out of their normal thought patterns and experience the feeling of being present in the current moment. His work mostly consists of physical illusions in the form of sculptures using leds, lenses, speciality films, and camera tracking to create objects which look like they should not be able to exist or appear to be computer renders. These physical illusions, oftentimes deal with mental illusions which are often ignored such as the relativity of time, something he is obsessed with, and perhaps how the very existence of time only exists because of humanity's blurred vision of reality. As part of Fowler’s post doc artist residency at NYU TISCH ITP he is currently working specifically on video infinity mirrors, a concept that he created for his thesis. One of the mirrors is currently displayed in the Telfair Museum in Savannah Georgia and another will be displayed at Currents New Media Festival in Santa Fe in 2022. In addition to light sculpture, Fowler works with machine learning in the form of General Adversarial Networks, creating models that output renders which look like real life media. He uses these models to exemplify the inherent bias and dangers of AI as well as explore the boundaries of what can be considered capital “A” art by using layered generated media combined with physical sculpture and projection.

about Lyn godley

Lyn Godley’s career has crossed the borders of fine arts, interiors, product, furniture, lighting, and jewelry. Her designs, done both through Lyn Godley Design Studio, and as former partner of Godley-Schwan (1984-1998) have been exhibited internationally, with work in numerous international museum and private collections, including the Museum of Modern Art (NYC), MAD Museum (NYC), Brooklyn Museum of Art (NYC), MUDE Museum (Lisbon), and  Philadelphia Museum of Art. For the last 24 years she has focused her attention on Art with light as her primary medium. 

Although technology (circuitry, coding, digital mapping) plays an important role in Godley’s work, she continues to combine that with traditional artistic medium; watercolor, pastel, charcoal, etc. Her sensibilities result in delicate adjustment of medium and materials in response to light as it travels through or is reflected off of their surfaces. This grounding in material studies, is further enriched through her research into the psychological and physiological effects that imagery, light and color have on the viewers. Her work is the result of these ongoing investigations, provoking questions regarding how the merger of light and materials might be used to speak to us, to mesmerizes, to excite, to calm, and to heal. 

Lyn Godley is also a fulltime Professor of Industrial Design at Thomas Jefferson University (formerly Philadelphia University). Through the Department of Industrial Design, she is developing a Cross-Disciplinary concentration in Lighting Design with a focus on the Experience of Light.  She is the founder and Director of The Jefferson Center of Immersive Arts for Health (JCIAH), which serves as a platform for collaborative teaching, research, and prototyping where dynamic and interactive design technologies fuse with patient experience. She has spoken on the topics of Light, Art and Health, and Cross-Disciplinary Lighting Design Education at both National and International conferences

About Jessica Judith Beckwith

Jessica Beckwith is a Philadelphia and New York based immersive installation artist. Her career began in theater performing, directing, and designing sets. Driven by a desire to encompass the viewer, she then began exploring new ways of using media and light to create immersive spaces. 

Mentioned in the New York Times for her “mystical theater” in Wholeness, an installation for Portal / Governors Island Art Fair, Jessica’s projections and multi-media installations have been included in exhibitions both nationally and internationally— notably at Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Woodstock Artists Association and Museum, Performa 13, Portal / Governors Island Art Fair, Galleria Ca D'Oro, and Hodjapasha Cultural Center, Istanbul. 

In her work Beckwith explores the subtle unity between the observer and observed and ways in which perception and thought shape reality. By activating the senses through an elemental language of light, sound, collaged video projection and pulse she sets out to create a felt space of embodied knowledge and connection.

 Beckwith’s work draws from Physics and the idea of light as a conduit for knowledge, energy, and healing. She is interested in eliciting and engaging in dialogue around how we think and produce knowledge, and the interplay of consciousness and memory in the way we live in our bodies, our communities, and on earth.

 Spanda is a light installation created as a study for The Jefferson Center for Immersive Arts for Health. By enveloping patrons in a 360 degree flow of rhythmic light, infused with elements of nature and shown in cycles of regeneration, a relaxed environment is created making space for a calm soothing sensation of connection and wholeness. 

About Philip Hart

Philip C. Hart was a Philosophy major at Haverford College and later studied Architecture at the Boston Architectural College. He worked for firms in Boston before moving to Maine in 1986. In Maine, his focus was on designing public schools until he retired in 2010. Since that time, he has engaged in a process of discovery through the medium of mobiles.

 His work is based in an exploration of pattern recognition, which is fundamental to language, intelligence, and memory. The composition of his mobiles is based on form, order, and balance. He is concerned with the fragility, malleability, and resilience of consciousness. In the vocabulary of this work, motion is as much a subject of it as is its composition.

 His mobiles are constructed with simple materials: wire, sheet metal, and fishing line. 

 Philip C. Hart lives with his wife Susan in Philadelphia, PA.

About Yael Erel

As an architect and light artist, Yael Erel sees light as a material that allows us to construct dynamic environments that oscillate between drawing, sculpture and architecture. In her work she uses simple means; a point light source and a reflector, to amplify minuscule conditions that are normally overlooked. The result unfolds micro scale events as otherworldly light drawings at an architectural scale. Exploring the direct phenomena of reflections to reveal what is not easily detected by the naked eye. 
Light has been used since antiquity as a conceptual tool in the construction of drawing projections. In Erel’s work she uses light as a device to create live drawings that can change in real time. She uses a combination of digital fabrication and hand craft to develop three dimensional reflectors. As light reflects off the surface it transcribes the three-dimensional information coded in the material in minute scale into visible and spatial two dimensional light projection. As the reflector changes, so do the light drawings, creating a dynamically changing lightscape that engages the viewer in a meditative gaze. 
My work ranges in scale from the design of small light-box objects to that of architectural and urban spaces. The intent of the work is to engage the viewer’s curiosity and extend their way of seeing their environment. As viewers interact with the work, the microscopic transcription blends aspects of natural sciences and with spatial reverie. These drawings reflect upon both technology and nature, and the movement embedded within the work allows for an immersion within a world that is both known and mysterious.