Einleitung

Snoezelen or „controlled multisensory environment (MSE)“ are classically a room based therapy form for people with autism and other developmental disabilities, that I first encountered in Kindergarden. 

The basic idea is to offer a space for a certain group in a soothing and stimulating environment, called a „Snoezelen room“. These rooms are specially designed to deliver stimuli to various senses, using lighting effects, color, sounds, music, scents, etc. A very important part is also the stimulation of tactile senses and/or sense of balance, through the use of waterbeds, interesting surfaces or fluffy walls.

Snoezel rooms are mostly accessible for closed group arrangements, due to their therapeutical character. Developed in the Netherlands in the 1970s, Snoezelen rooms (snoezelroom) have been established in institutions all over the world and are especially common in Germany, where more than 1,200 exist. As part of a inclusive kindergarten group, I had the chance to experience it on a nearly weekly basis myself and remember the soothing and balancing effect, it had on me as a kid, to go to a space with nice ambient music, interesting lights and cosy water beds.

In times of the polycrises, with depressions and anxieties being more and more present in society, it's about time to test publicly accessible forms of collective care and rest and building resilience.

Background

The Snoezel Room Concept is an idea in the back of my head, that waits for it's realisation for quite some time and can be applied for various contexts. The Main Pillars of Inspirations for the idea are:

Multisensory [Learning] Environments are taking an important role in the discourse around new forms of learning and engaging with topics of personal and social-ecological transformations. It's commonly used in [edu-] escape rooms, immersive exhibitions, museums, and many more.

As an alternative to a typical 'performer-audience-relationship' that one can find in various context, may it be education, concert, art performances or readings, multi-sensory-environments are an invitation for the visitor to explore and participate within the room. In contrast to unidirectional knowledge processes, which direct the attention and information transmitted in a clear way, processes of knowledge exchange are multidirectional and not guided by the 'teacher', but the role as an organizer is rather to shape the framework and hold the space for exchange on a certain topic.

Ambient Focused Listening Bars are a emerging kind of bar, that are already well-established in Japan and start to pop up in various places in europe. It's a new form of going out, meeting people in public, which is not focused on drinking alcohol, being loud and funny, but an invitation to meet in a rather calm public space, that offers delicious drinks, tea and cultivate calm but warm encounters. It's a kind of new form of a bar, that reacts on emerging desires for not having the desire for being loud, energetic and drugged.

Polyphonic Design / Multispecies Design / Designs for Pluriverse

As an approach for engaging with the collapse of ecosystems, it is an important step, to sharpen the perspective on the multiplicity of conditions for existence for different lifeforms, beside the hegemonic western universalist idea of life and future. Arturo Escobar set an important contribution with theorizing the concept of pluriverse, that is part of latin american social movements for decades. The concept of pluriverse focuses on the existence of multiple lifeforms and truths, beside the colonial narrative of growth and development, and claims a right for existence of different (marginalized) lifeforms at the same time.

The concept of polyphonic design stems originally from the musical concept of polyphony-the use of simultaneous, yet independent, melodic lines in a composition-and is transferred from the 20th Century on to visual arts, sounddesign and lately also design. The polyphonic character of the space will be underlined through musical and poetric contributions, that weave a composition of different layers of sound and spoken word. Multispecies Design will be integrated to shed a light and attention towards ecosystems surrounding us. The focus will be created through moss and mushrooms installations, with are non-human cohabitators that one can easily find, and therefor relate to, in our close surroundings.

Hauntology

Include the discourse around Hauntology, to create a kind of a mystical athmosphere and the discourse around anthropocene, ghosts of the pasts, ghosts of the future that are haunting us. Opening space for embodied feelings in interaction with current realities.

Awareness

There is only few public snoezelen rooms already existing in europe, so opening up a space with the invitation to rest, laying down, being vulnerable and opening up emotionally, in a (semi) public environments with walk-in-walk-out situations can create challenges. 
It's therefor important to create a good line up, communicate opening hours and a visible awareness concept/team to make sure, people joining the space feel safe and stay safe.

Umsetzung

WORK IN PROGRESS

Preparations:

☑ Find a free room to host event >> offline.place, Neukölln, Schillerkiez 
>>>>Dates are set: 29./30.November
☐ Find possibilities for fundings to pay cultural contribution >> in process
☐ Design Invitations, invite friends and colleages in advance >> Design idea exists >> Polly Pocket Invitation Card >> In ref to thai ghost houses

Teams need to be formed around:

1) Space Design

fluffy, bubbly, asmr, blue-purple-yellowish light situation
Elements: watercolumns (c3 deko lager), mushrooms/moss to touch, waterbed?? waterbed pillows (kutter)

magical mystical mood - ghostly, hauntology - interspecies encounter - snoezel room kitsch (a bit vaporwave)

anologue visuals / microscrope, av video mixer (franz,mihau,kim?), prisma

space to lay down comfortable in group, alone, modular

2) Bar

offer nice drinks, without alcohol [requirement offline bar], beautiful colours, maybe fermented lemonade, maybe selfmade bubble-tea? 

warm & cold, spicy and bubbly //// bacteria bar would be cool

3) Cultural Contributions

Time Limitation from Offline until 22:00 - End of November very dark time Estimated Opening / Play Times Sa: 14 - 22 So: 16 - 22:00

Saturday : Ambient - Dreamy Space to play - Nice Drinks - Open all day Sunday: Rather Workshop oriented space, more political / activist focus

//Ideas

☑ Ambient, Spoken Word Music ---- Felix und Larissa aka Mikromission

☐ Live Hörspiel Annares Urras Express Link
☐ More Ambient Music - Create like a afternoon neighbourhood ambient cafe?
☐ sound collage mit contributions der besucher?? Partizipative Elemente
☐ ASMR like Participatory Sound Installation - Sand? Microskope? Camera? Mic/Loop/Whatever?
☐ body related workshop that deals with ghosts and sorrows
☐ Crouchet
☐ fermenting?
☐ Lesung anfragen?
☐ Pilzperformance - Multispecies Art (Music) Performance
☐ Poetry Workshop
☐ Writing Letters

>>>> target group: artists / art collectives, ambient/sound ppl, international community, political activists, scientists, strengthen existing networks

4) Awareness Team, Artist Care, Food?

Offer to help with artist care (+technical setup?)