My practice involves holistic wellbeing integration within experiential real-time digital and physical 3D/4D environments, virtual and augmented reality and gamification technology. I am an expert in digital studio education, currently employed by RMIT as a specialist in digital media subject design and teaching.

I combining emerging tech with narrative or non-narrative empathy design spaces: the fusion of interdisciplinary languages, tools, & production techniques that merge empathetic identities & environments into transformative experiences, entities and resonances.

Case Study: The Carmen Project

The Carmen Project is a case study that centred ideas around deconstructing objectification & stereotyping of the male gaze in dialogue with digitization of femininity.

“When creating frameworks for designs to emerge, I find it helpful to use similar project development methodologies to UX design thinking. First and foremost, an identity or persona is therefore a symbolic aspect of the ecosystem it emerges from. Ideally, environments and identities are synonymous, both fluid dynamic expressions of a confluent ecosystem.

The 'Carmen Ecosystem' emerged from two research sources. French composer Georges Bizet's ‘Carmen’ and the 90s computer game 'Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego'. In both of these examples, the feminine is depicted as constantly in flux, uncontrollable, elusive, passionate, dangerous and mysterious. Below are a few examples digital media designs from the Carmen Project.”

“For site specific fabrication and installations of Carmen digital media designs I focused on aesthetic outcomes that maintained the integrity of core ecosystem concepts whilst pushing the technical interplay between fabrication (identity) and site specificity (environment)”.

The alchemy of bridging ideas across digital and physical mediums whilst retaining focus & integrity of cultural identity is not just a question of automation & scalability. It is a process & practice of mindfulness & care.

Iterative elements Carmen digital media assets were developed into a virtual reality gallery experience.

 “The Carmen project modulated yet again from a physical exhibition into an experience of a presence that ‘Carmen’ represents. A gallery event (physical) within which the work was shared as a VR experience (digital) Experiencing the ‘presence’ of Carmen immersed in VR the works also modelled the physical dimensions of the gallery within which the virtual experience was taking place.” 

“Essentially, modulating and adapting the modality of design assets, whilst staying true to principles and elements through various mediums is at the heart of design thinking in agile practice.” 

Below we see an example of modulated iterations of original Carmen digital media assets resulting in a series of mask prototypes.   

Mask designs emerge from reconstructing video footage stills:

All the above assets were then published with the Heard and Felt record company as an audiovisual release that included integrated thematic images, video and project based music productions that were created based on overarching project concepts.

The Cy Gorman AV design collection 'Carmen' was released internationally as a mixed media release & is available for download through www.heardandfelt.com