Pod Bluman explores gut feelings with interactive show

Artist and designer Pod Bluman will this autumn invite the public to participate in The Gut – an interactive experience that explores pathways of connection between humans.

The owner of Bluman Associates, which specialises in the use of technologies to design complicated and hybrid systems,has recently completed an MRes degree at the Royal College of Art in London, exploring the impact of awe and immersion in public art.

Now he has created an AV environment that reacts to participants’ behaviour, building upon the human instinct to build relationships, often manifested as a gut feeling.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The GUT (@the_gut_experience)

Visitors to the experience will be paired with a stranger and, upon entering, will be asked a series of questions that must be answered using movement and gestures, rather than words. Their reactions will be instantaneously translated into audio and visual representations that immerse the participants ‘within’ their own instinctive, emotional experience – not only reflecting but enhancing it, creating a feeling of awe that research shows makes people notably pro-social and fosters relationships.

Bluman hopes to use awe and immersion to create an environment that helps people transcend the everyday, to become more receptive to new ideas, to focus less on themselves and feel part of a larger whole. “I want people to leave feeling connected, understood, seen,” he says.

THE GUT runs from 22-25 September in north London. For tickets, click here.