Hallucination machine : a body centric model of space perception

In this thesis I present a novel approach to space perception. I provide a body-centric computational model, The Hallucination Machine, that integrates bodily knowledge with senses in a common modality which I call "the sphere of embodiment". Understanding the human experience of space is an important inquiry not only in the context of design and architecture, but in a broad range of scholarly disciplines where humans are the subject of study, whether as biological, social, or cognitive entities. My vision is that in order to create a knowledge of space shared through different disciplines and to develop tools and methods of scientific inquiry into the "human space," we have to conceptualize a space perception model that connects sensory experience with the actions and bodily knowledge of the actor. Implications for such a model have been proposed by phenomenologists in the philosophical realm and carried into psychology through concepts of embodiment, situated cognition, and enaction. The Hallucination Machine illustrates the inner-spatial relations between different senses and movements, collected through sensory and inertial recording devices of the machine which experiences space situated by its human carrier. Through this inquiry, I argue that all senses, including proprioception and orientation, are collapsed in one medium, a sphere of embodiment, in which they form a multimodal spatial experience and communicate through it. I demonstrate the practical implications of this medium through a set of experiments.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Zaman, C̦ağrı Hakan

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Terry Knight and Patrick H. Winston.

• Architecture.
• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/91425

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/91425