The sense event

A “sense event”, a phrase coined by Derek Woodgate is a produced entertainment or experiential event that engages participants in an amplified or augmented multi-sensory experience and results in enhanced associated memory formation. Woodgate goes on to explain that sensation is central to sense events in which multi-sensory experiences and ambience are the conduits.

The concept for the “sense event” format was driven by two separate yet equally significant influences. The first of these came from work we undertook over a number of years on the future of the entertainment and gaming industry based around leveraging augmented ambience, which covers everything from fully immersive environments and telepresence, to data dust networks, multi-sensory fusion and interaction, together with cognitive feedback, all aimed at augmenting the impact of displays, devices, interfaces and the experience generated, beyond what we now expect. The second key influence was the concept of Deleuzian aesthetics of sensation and encounter. Deleuzian ideas of intensity and experience, through which the subject is subsumed in the beyond, through becoming and sensation, determine the subject to be virtually ‘hystericized’ by the intensities, rhythms, flows and energies. The beyond of desire and affect lies in that sensation. The essence of sensation is rhythm, which forms an engagement with the body, brain and the environment.

Designing a “sense event” requires a comprehensive understanding of emerging multimedia technologies, how to create sensation and personal ambience and finally how best to harmonize content, environment, interfaces, audience and delivery systems.