Finalist: Thanos Tsiousis
University of the Aegean, Greece, 2020

Website: thanostsiousis.gr
Linkedin: https://gr.linkedin.com/in/thanos-tsiousis-444463125

Sensory Stimulator: A Multi-species Fabrication of Hyper-realities is an ongoing design narrative that explores the need for people to redefine themselves as entities with a rich, multilayered sensory perception and the creation, through design, of human, non-human hybrids. The Sensory Stimulator is made up of detachable parts that collect, enhance and transform the senses. The user has the opportunity to make different use of the “data” he encounters, to enhance his senses and, subsequently, to intervene in his emotions. The Sensory Stimulator can be used to shape its users psychologically and emotionally.

Besides, through the digitization of information, users can disseminate all kinds of aesthetic creation. The work revolves around questions about the role of technology as a force that shapes our relationship with the physical systems, human culture and ultimately ourselves, embedded in the tools we create. Technology is not seen as an external element of human existence, but rather an emerging result of our thinking and action. What if – with the help of technology – we could manage the way information travels to the brain’s neurons?