A series of panel discussions within the framework of Therme Art’s Wellbeing Culture Forum, meditation workshops, and special live performances accompanied the installation.

Taking over the 2500 sqm Event Hall 1.0 at Design Miami/ Basel, Superblue partnered with Therme Mind to present a multi-sensory experience featuring the Dutch artist duo DRIFT and a site-specific pavilion by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. Throughout the week, special programming activated the installations, including a series of panel discussions, meditations and workshops presented within the framework of Therme Art’s Wellbeing Culture Forum.

Created by DRIFT for Design Miami/ Basel 2021, Shy Synchrony is a poetic, upside-down landscape of moving Shylights perpetually blooming in mid-air, inviting visitors to contemplate natural rhythms and their soothing effect on our state of being. The site-specific installation fills Design Miami’s massive entrance hall, providing visitors a moment of synchrony with their immediate surroundings. In a time that is defined by human isolation and a disconnect from nature, DRIFT’s practice aims to address the need for a new alignment with our environment and a return to the strength of communal interaction. Shy Synchrony explores our innate response, individually and collectively, to natural movements, creating a deepened sense of awareness for the singular qualities of all environments we traverse.

“Natural movements remind the body of how to adapt and align with our environment,” expressed Lonneke Gordijn, DRIFT artist. “In this time of disconnect and climate crisis, we are in desperate need of aligning with each other to create a vision that will secure the future of our planet.”

Superblue presented their commission to Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto’s Forest of Space in dialogue with DRIFT’s Shy Synchrony at Design Miami / Basel 2021. This first collaboration is part of a larger Superblue project which aims to connect artists and architects, allowing them to develop unique concepts and experiences that push the boundary of conventional art spaces.

Sou Fujimoto’s intended forest-like space invites visitors to interact between the space and the body, allowing them to engage in conversations about the past, present, or future of architecture, and about urban settlements and the natural environment, experimenting with spatial or social qualities in the life-size pavilion.

Shy Synchrony is presented by Superblue in collaboration with Therme Mind, the new joint venture between wellbeing leader Therme Group and Neuroscience pioneer MindMaze. MindMaze’s groundbreaking brain restoration and learning technology is adapted by MYND for application in architecture, design and art projects, to create digital, multi-sensorial solutions for mental and physical wellbeing. MYND uses neurotechnology to interact with users’ mind-body functions and design responsive experiences based on biofeedback. In Shy Synchrony, an initial render of MYND technology was displayed, foreshadowing its future developments, by correlating the movement of DRIFT’s Shylights with visitors’ neural and heart rate activity, leading them into deeper states of consciousness.

“Through our joint venture with Therme Mind, MindMaze is now expanding into the larger interactive art and cultural sectors, reaching wider audiences, and underlining the significance of new interactive platforms for mental health and wellbeing in contemporary society,” commented CEO of MindMaze, Tej Tadi. “This joint venture is creating a radical shift in the way we perceive and consume both technology and art.”

MYND has developed a unique headset with sensors that capture information from the brain, the face and the heart, bringing one’s internal state to life via DRIFT’s Shylights. These embedded sensors capture brain relaxation patterns, facial muscular activities and heart rate variations, leveraging sophisticated AI algorithms to guide the artwork’s expressions and movement patterns in real time. As a participant engages in a guided meditation experience donning the headset, their internal bodily state manifests visually via a unique choreography of the artwork. Viewing and understanding their impact on Shylights’ choreography triggers their visual-cortical neuro-biofeedback loop, and as co-participants engage in the experience, their inner states are impacted too.

Shy Synchrony at Design Miami/ Basel, 2021. Photo: Ossip van Duivenbode

“By integrating Therme Mind’s neurotechnology, Shy Synchrony creates an experience where audiences can become a part of the artwork, observe their mental activity and explore the conditions that support their own mind-body wellbeing,” said CEO and Co-Founder of Therme Art, Mikolaj Sekutowicz. “We are pleased to present this work at Design Miami/ Basel this year, as part of Therme Mind’s newest art commissions programme.”

Offering a place of calm and congregation at the heart of the fair, a series of activations across the fields of science, meditation, and architecture will be offered in the space throughout the week.

As part of the Wellbeing Culture Forum, Therme Art presented the talk “Art and Architecture as Healing: Shaping a Mental Health Economy” on Wednesday, 22 September, from 11:00 – 12:30. The discussion was centred on architecture’s potential as a medium to improve mental health, going beyond architectural preconditions previously founded on the notion of productivity. Guest panellists included Lonneke Gordijn, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Precious Okoyomon, Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst, Torkwase Dyson, Sumayya Vally, Tej Tadi, Simon de Pury, Franziska Kessler, Mikolaj Sekutowicz, Olaf Blanke, among others. Art, architecture, and cultural production will be introduced as resources that hold the power to create physical spaces in which mental health becomes a priority.

To learn more, visit www.therme.art.

Full programming included:

Tuesday, September 21

1 – 2 pm | In Perpetuity, Silicon Valley Superblue Art & Architecture project, San José
A living circular monument that moves in reaction to human presence, providing areas for community activation.
Speakers: Ben Van Berkel, Nassia Inglessis

4 – 5 pm | Intangible Architecture: Representing acoustic waveforms of a recording of the spoken word, urban context and architectural environment.
Speakers: Carsten Nicolai, Louise Lemoine & Ila Bêka

Wednesday, September 22

11:00 am – 12:30 pm | Art and Architecture as Healing: Shaping a Mental Health Economy hosted by Therme Art’s Wellbeing Culture Forum
Speakers: included Torkwase Dyson, Lonneke Gordijn, Precious Okoyomon, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Mikolaj Sekutowicz, Olaf Blanke, and Franziska Kessler