Interactive Room for mentally disabled people

Institution : Maretak Institut, Duffel (VL, Belgium)

Description : An immersive interactive room dedicated to a mentally disabled audience, providing 7 interactive scenarios, based on sound or/and movement.

Project members : Dev-o-cité (technological expertise, software programming), Moussa Sanja Tomic ( conception, graphic design, project management)

This project mostly consisted of an experimentation period of 6 months in order to test many scenarios. The scenarios that are sustainable were kept, they fit the most to cognitive and behavioural specificities of the audience : uncontrolled sound production, visual deficiency, focus capabilities, hyper sensitivity, misunderstanding of fast movements, the expectable wheelchair configuration, the lack of conciousness of one’s self-reflection in a mirror.

The nature of the project is therapeutic, relaxing or game oriented. There’s always a staff member in the room when it’s used.

The final scenarii are the following :

• Painting on walls with the voice and claps (and all possible modulations)
• Eye tracking of shapes on walls (train focus)
• Virtual ball playground, which is collaborative only (playing alone is impossible). This is meant to practice group consciousness
• Virtual bubble unit, swimming pool (underwater)
• Interact with animals using sounds
• 2 relaxation videos