This one might strike you as a little weird. But what’s the point of experience design, if not sometimes
trying to make your way into people's heads?
The Stromboli Cult was a project in two chapters: It all started on the
mystical volcanic island Stromboli in the Tyrrhenian Sea. During one week, we rented a beautiful white villa
a few minutes
uphill from the village. It was there that I designed an experience that was meant to recreate becoming a
member of a cult.
Deep diving into research about the mysterious past of the island and the infamous cults of the 60ies and
70ies, I recreated their methods and combined them to form an inauguration ritual during sunrise in a hidden
bay. I collected
insight into how a carefully designed and completely analog experience, could – even with the participants
knowing most of the intention – trigger very similar reactions as the ones reported by actual cult members;
such as an intense
sense of belonging, tightening the bond between the members in a “beautiful superabundance of love" to such
an extent that it would sometimes just barely tilt into repugnance of anyone who chose not to be part of the
rituals and the
cult.
The second, more digital and much darker part of the experience took place back in Zurich. In a closed
space, every participant (one by one) would get a VR headset used like a blindfold, where I could control if
and what they saw.
Through a combination of video, audio, and human touch I would build up their trust in me (again playing the
role of the cult leader) and with it their confidence in walking around the space blindly, but guided. Once
they were
confident enough, the experience would come to an end with an uncomfortable combination of audio and video
showing the cult leader disappear, thus breaking their trust and leaving them on their own, at the exact
moment when they were
stepping
off the edge of a platform into emptiness. Not high enough for them to be injured, but just high enough to
hit them with the feeling one experiences when expecting the end of a staircase one step before it actually
ends.