© Alberto Ferrero. Published on March 05, 2012.

The Social Cave is an ongoing project developed by the research Lab, Non Linear Solution Unit at Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation in New York. The project explores how the relation between digital and physical connectivity affects socialization in US public environment. The digital age has dissolved traditional conceptions of space. Whereas socialization once existed entirely within the physical realm, the virtual world has invited new rules and interaction within a previously unavailable dimension. Growing virtual connectivity has certainly created a network of unlimited communication pathways. Yet while our social reach has extended, relationships spawned by the web often remain confined to the digital space in which they were initiated. The protection of that dematerialization is seductive; intimacy must no longer be defined by physicality. Emboldened by the blanket of physical anonymity, we may assert a redefined sense of privacy and closeness. By merging physical and virtual space, how can design affect the changing vista of socialization? Can design encourage a new platform for interaction in public space? The first prototype of the Social Cave was developed in occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Milan Furniture Fair. It was invited as honor guest of the exhibit 50 + 50 Designing the Future by Marva Griffin, the curator of the non-profit organization Salone Satellite. With a group of 24 international students and the interaction designers BCAA, the project consisted to design a small, interactive installation that would be encountered by hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom are strangers to each other. In response, the Social Cave, a typology that returns to the beginnings of our civilization. The Cave blended the frenzied excitement of virtual connectivity’s power and speed with the calm of its form and materiality, an aggregation of 100% recycled and 100% recyclable foam cubes. The barrier wall separating the two enclosures within the Cave ensures that visitors inhabiting each of those spaces are initially concealed from each other. The presence of a visitor in the opposite space was revealed only through an abstracted projection capturing his movements. The physical anonymity created by the enclosure allows each visitor to feel comfortable engaging in a digital and visual conversation with the projected “shadow” or “ghost” of the visitor opposite him. Gestures and personalities are therefore made familiar to each other before the initial physical meeting. Thus, the Social Cave first hides and then exposes the proximity and identity of its visitors, allowing a conversation to begin that transcends traditional digital physical boundaries. The experimentation in Milan was extremely successful. More than 450.000 visitors stopped, start to play and socialize with other visitors. The presence or absence of the cubes permitted to constantly challenge the relation between physical and digital environment between individual and collective playfulness.

The Social Cave

© Sebastiano Pellion di Persano. Published on March 05, 2012.

© Alberto Ferrero. Published on March 05, 2012.

© Alberto Ferrero. Published on March 05, 2012.

© Sabastiano Pellion di Persano. Published on March 05, 2012.

© Sebastiano Pellion di Persano. Published on March 05, 2012.

© Alberto Ferrero. Published on March 05, 2012.

© Alberto Ferrero. Published on March 05, 2012.

© Alberto Ferrero. Published on March 05, 2012.

© Alberto Ferrero. Published on March 05, 2012.

© Alberto Ferrero. Published on March 05, 2012.

© Sebastiano Pellion di Persano . Published on March 05, 2012.

© Sebastiano Pellion di Persano. Published on March 05, 2012.

© Sebastiano Pellion di Persano. Published on March 05, 2012.