A post-material consumer experience

27 : 06 : 2017 Technology : Retail : Fashion

London – Central Saint Martins graduate Martina Rocca’s Emovos explores the ethical implications of a future in which brands sell emotional experiences to consumers.

Emovos by Martina Rocca, London Emovos by Martina Rocca, London
Emovos by Martina Rocca, London
Emovos by Martina Rocca, London Emovos by Martina Rocca, London
Emovos by Martina Rocca, London Emovos by Martina Rocca, London

According to Rocca, the speculative project is a response to today’s resource scarcity and the unsustainable level of consumption in the developing world. ‘I engineered a new post-material experience that offers a viable alternative to the unsustainable practice of physical material consumption,’ she explains.

Emovos comprises a series of kinetic objects that users interact with while wearing a virtual reality (VR) headset. The objects work in tandem with the VR experience to trigger an emotional response in the brain, enabling fashion brands to create immersive, commercial VR experiences that replicate the feeling of the in-store experience.

Alex Ayad, strategy director at Outsmart Insights, predicts that consumers will be able to buy emotions by 2045. ‘Techniques for direct brain stimulation have made it possible to write information into single neurons. At the moment, data transfer rates are still slow, but they could increase to reach broadband speeds by 2045. The range of human perception could then expand,’ he explains.

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