The Seattle Design Festival is a platform for bold design conversations. We believe that design is for everyone and that inclusive co-design practices are essential to shaping an equitable Seattle. We are multidisciplinary, socially engaged and civic minded.
- Pop-Ups
- Funding Awardee
EchoBoxes: A Ritual of Response
August 16 | 11am-3pm
- Lake Union Park (Pop-Up Zone)
- View on Map
EchoBoxes: A Ritual of Response is an interactive installation of distinct enclosures or “boxes” designed around Feedback rituals. At its core, EchoBoxes is a sensory-driven experience that explores how feedback is not always instant, obvious, or universal. Using Arduinos, sensors, lights, buttons, electromagnets, and a ferrofluid display, participants engage in a series of tactile, auditory, and sensory feedback challenges. Each action, whether a button press, a subtle gesture, or a turn of knobs, triggers responses that must be felt, interpreted, and understood in real time. These interactions intentionally disrupt familiar feedback loops, altering dominant senses and inviting players to adapt. EchoBoxes acts as a ritual space that challenges assumptions about perception, accessibility, and conventional norms rather than guiding users toward clear outcomes. It becomes a reflective mirror, asking: What happens when systems respond differently than we expect? What if feedback is emotional, symbolic, or incomprehensible for some? Through ambiguity, delay, and abstraction, the experience critiques traditional feedback mechanisms and celebrates alternative forms of interaction, ones that are inclusive, interpretive, and deeply human.