Sonzai Zone (2019, 23 min) is a speculative fiction film on intimacy and loneliness after the normalization of ambient communication media. An unlikely encounter between Yún and Souvd takes place in a near-future where social interactions are largely based on the mediation of human presence, known as ‘sonzai-kan’. Shifting between XR games, Immersion Arcades and spatial home displays, their insidiously orchestrated relationship escalates into extreme idealization. Meanwhile, Souvd’s ex-girlfriend Ntzumi launches an undercover investigation.

The interfaces and narrative depicted in the film are based on design anthropological interventions and expert interviews conducted during 2017-2018 in the context of Aalto University in Finland. The film was developed with the mentoring of Daniel van der Velden (Metahaven) and Rob Schröder at the Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam. The work has been shown at various events and exhibitions such as IMPAKT / Speculative Interfaces (2019, Utrecht), DEMO moving image festival (2020, online), VISIO / Resisting the Trouble (2020, Florence), Kunstverein Schattendorf (2022, Schattendorf) and Extended Senses (2022, London).

Sonzai-kan 存在感 is a Japanese concept for human presence: a quality of existence or ‘affective atmosphere’ that we can perceive in each other when spending time in the same space. This quality is often lost in communication through screen-based interfaces, which are inherently not designed to mediate subtle, nonverbal cues about coexistence and affection.

At the same time, the idea that human presence can be mediated over distance in an ambient way has been explored in the field of Human-Computer Interaction already since the late 90s. This research produced a broad range of interface prototypes defined by similar principles: the transmission of peripheral cues about the user’s real-time being. Rather than mediating figurative content between devices, the presence of another person is experienced in space through ‘expanded affective fields’, stretched over time.

Such communication systems are hereby referred to as ‘Sonzai Media’. Sonzai Media have emancipatory potential as they afford fluid, embodied forms of cognition and communication that could counterbalance the dominant, objectifying and quantifying ways of relating to the planet and to each other. At the same time, its emergence adds to already existing concerns about agency and power in contemporary media.

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