AURA
What does the Internet feel like ?
AURA is a research-led digital platform exploring how Gen Z emotionally perceives and experiences the internet.
Observing the internet as an environment rather than simply a tool, the project examined its emotional, spatial and material qualities through surveys, interviews and workshops. The research was translated into a series of visual and material experiments, culminating in an interactive platform designed to encourage reflection on our relationship with digital space.
Through a questionnaire, users received an individual “Internet Aura” — a visual snapshot of how their current relationship with the internet feels.
80% of Gen Z describes the Internet as cold.
A survey conducted with Gen Z formed the starting point for AURA, mapping a relationship with the internet that was deeply familiar, yet rarely consciously considered.
When asked what the internet felt like, participants responded in unexpectedly physical terms: dark, smooth, slimy, metallic, plastic.
Most notably, 82% described it as cold.
These responses suggested that digital space was being perceived as a material environment. This became the basis for a series of experiments translating emotional associations into textures, forms and surfaces, developed in collaboration with 3D artist and producer Cheryl Wang.
The finding ultimately shaped AURA’s central question: how might greater awareness of the way digital environments make us feel lead to a more conscious relationship with them?
CTRL-DELETE
CTRL-DELETE
EXHIBITION SMC REAL TIME: CTRL + ALT + DELETE
AURA was selected as one of 12 graduate projects from University of the Arts London for SMC Real Time: CTRL + ALT + DELETE, a showcase examining how our increasingly digital ways of living might become fairer, kinder and more empathetic.
Presented as part of a collection of projects advocating for a more positive and equitable relationship with technology, AURA was exhibited both online through SMC Real Time and physically at Foubert’s Place Gallery in Soho, London.
The project brought together research, strategy, art direction, digital experience and image-making, using the internet as both subject and space for exploring how technology shapes the way we feel.