Responding the ‘weather of a space’
When I was preparing for the Creating New Spaces podcast interview with Harvey Moon from Spectra Studios about Zephyr, it was not immediately clear to me how the piece responded to the breathing of the viewer.
Zephyr is a series of kinetic origami structures suspended from the ceiling within a space. These objects move in a breath-like manner, expanding and contracting in response to the air around them. At first, I assumed they were tracking the breath of individual viewers.
As Harvey and I talked, it became clear that Zephyr wasn’t responding to a single person’s breath. Instead, it measured the CO2 levels of the entire space. The piece is not about an individual’s direct influence. Rather than offering personal control, it responds to the shared presence of those in the room.
Agency vs. autonomous interaction
Often in interactive installations, there is a tension between viewer agency and the autonomous behavior of a piece. Many works create a silhouette of the viewer within the visuals, acting like a reflective mirror. This allows audiences to see themselves, reinforcing a direct relationship between their actions and the interaction. In desktop interface design, the mouse pointer serves this function—establishing an immediate cause-and-effect connection.
In contrast, systems that behave autonomously invite different forms of engagement. In such works, viewers often try to decipher the logic of the interaction, expecting direct feedback similar to a silhouette. However, when the system follows its own emergent rules—responding to ambient or environmental conditions rather than direct input—the interaction becomes more open-ended and fluid.
Harvey Moon on open-ended interaction
During the interview, Harvey talked about not always wanting these types of direct interactions in the spaces that Spectra Studios creates:
I always felt like it was more interesting to have a sort of dialogue with the audience rather than a sort of one-to-one, did I do it right or wrong? Sort of interaction with the visitor. So if it became sort of too gamified, then I think it sort of lost some of the beauty of its autonomy - Harvey Moon
Rethinking interaction as the weather of a space
The type of interaction Harvey describes in Zephyr feels ambient and nonlinear—more like how we interact with nature than how we typically engage with technology. I didn’t actually say this in the interview, but afterward, I started to think of these interactions as responding to the ‘weather of a space.’ The weather is created by the people in the space.
To me, weather in this context is intriguing. Weather is always present, surrounding us. Sometimes it is visible—rain and snow. Sometimes it is invisible—wind and temperature.
It’s a frame of mind for interaction that I hope to explore further.