1 WHY JUST VISUALISATION? Stuart Jones School of Graphic and Industrial Design Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design The University of the Arts London Southampton Row London WC1 4AP wawamoz@gmail.com http://www.wawamoz.com This paper discusses the dynamic relationship which exists between the seen (object, space) and the heard, where the sound can transform our perception of the visual/spatial content, and further how this can be transformed by interaction. It proposes that seeing is typically focused on ‘one thing at a time’, whereas hearing is active, multivalent and typically focused on plural sources, and further that interaction, by involving the persona as well as the senses in active engagement, generates a new relationship to the sensory experience. INTRODUCTION A little while ago I was in a Moroccan restaurant in London. The décor was soft and intimate, Moroccan music was playing quietly in the background. I was sitting with my back to the door. Every once in a while, the room seemed to get bigger for a moment, and then return to its normal size. As I tried to understand this phenomenon, I noticed that the sound got louder as the room grew larger, and that it was this which was producing the illusion. I then worked out that this increase of volume was coming from behind me. I turned round and saw that the sound got louder when the door was opened. As I left the restaurant I saw that in the porch, which was open to the street, there was a speaker playing the same music as inside (presumably to attract custom) which I hadn’t noticed as I went in. In pre-natal development, although there is minimal recognition of light and dark in the womb, sight is the last sense to come into play, being of minimal function at birth and not fully developed until the sixth to eighth month. On the other hand, all the other senses develop to a high level in the womb; in particular, recognition and discrimination of sounds starts in the third trimester (by 27-30 weeks); that is, we start making sense of the outer world through hearing at that time. Hearing is fully developed one month after birth[1]. This has implications for how we experience the world in later life. We seem to experience touch, taste, smell and hearing in a more visceral and direct way than sight. Most people are more readily moved by music than by visual art. In our primitive state we were either on the lookout for prey, or for that which might prey upon us. This has had important implications for the way our senses work together. The eye is in constant movement (saccades) as it scans the visual field for information; in doing so it focuses on one thing at a time, while keeping the entire field in the background. Typically it will be attracted by movement. (This process is unconscious: when we are examining a picture we may deliberately scan its surface; when we are