Grace Boyle
on Multisensory Storytelling for Environmental Advocacy
How much of a “Feelie” are you? How many senses do you think you (actually) have?
Grace Boyle demystifies the idea that we have only 5 senses. It seems we are pretty close to 33! When exposed to stories, we engage all our senses, existing and not-yet-existing: “Humans are sensory beings. We are constantly taking in information through all our senses. There are huge opportunities to reach people emotionally and effectively by communicating with more of their sensory modalities.”
Multi-sensory storytelling sounds like a journey into a magical realm through the lens of Grace’s artistic practice. But her blend of art and technology is simply bringing us closer to the wonders of reality. Grace is a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art and the founder of The Feelies, an award-winning sensory storytelling studio exploring intelligence across physical and digital mediums, focusing on the natural world and our relationship to it.
Always interested in the avant-garde, Grace started making multisensory virtual reality pieces back when there wasn’t a business framework for that. Over time, she understood that her works were a form of praxis, of developing thinking by doing. She gained herself the freedom to create whatever she found conceptually interesting, fueling her creative thinking on the go.
Her background in ecological campaigns and journalism led her to build sensory narratives for environmental storytelling. Bringing together perfumery, perception science and artistic installation in the world of XR, she has engaged in projects ranging from gathering sensory surrounds in an Indigenous Amazon village to conducting olfactory dream workshops in a medieval castle, aided by AI. “Munduruku: The Fight to Defend the Heart of the Amazon” is a multisensory VR-led experience in collaboration with Greenpeace that raises awareness of the threats faced by Indigenous peoples in Brazil. Grace wanted to show this formidable ecosystem’s beauty and complexity and connect the city audiences to it by using scent, vibration and atmospheric changes in combination with 360 video footage: “When we create digital experiences about nature, it’s vital not to sanitize or capture only the pleasant, fairy-tale parts. That would be something bland, a poorer representation of the story”.
You’ll have the chance to meet Grace Boyle and discover her work at the UNFINISHED Festival in Romania, on the 27-29th of September, where she will be a Speaker. In the meantime, read her answers for Inspirators, activate all your potential senses and remember to “get rooted enough in your past and don’t be afraid to move forward to a different future!
Thank you, Grace, for being a Multisensory Storyteller!
#INSPIRATORS QUESTIONNAIRE
Name: Grace Boyle
Company / Institution: The Feelies
Title: Founder; Director
Website: thefeelies.io
LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-boyle-92ab6b10b/
Country of origin: UK
Country you currently live in: London, UK
Your definition of Regeneration: Feeling rooted enough in your past to not be afraid to move forward to a different future. And being kind!
Main business challenge you face: Being interested in the avant-garde! When I started Feelies in 2014, the studio made multisensory virtual reality pieces, and there wasn’t a business framework for that. Over time, I understood that the works were a form of praxis, of developing thinking by doing. So I have the freedom to create works that I find interesting conceptually, which fuels my thinking for lecturing, writing, and consulting on design futures.
Main driver that keeps you going: I’m extremely lucky to be able to follow the thread of what I find interesting. Most of the time ;)
The trait you are most proud of in yourself: I have authenticity, for better or for worse! And I really value kindness.
The trait you most value in others: Taking care of other people.
Passions & little things that bring you joy: I love meeting new people, being exposed to new ideas, and discovering new places.
The Inspirators who determined you to take the regenerative path:
In my twenties, I worked as an environmental campaigner and researcher in India. My manager was a climate campaigner called Vinuta Gopal, and she was very inspiring for me in that she gave me so many amazing opportunities! Having grown up in London, on my first week on the job I was suddenly off on a bus to rural areas in Kerala to interview fishermen and farmers about climate change. Later I would visit the Himalayas to profile communities that had set up their own microhydro unit. She gave me so much opportunity for growth and I am forever indebted to her for that.
Most used and abused clichés in sustainability that bother you: I worry about neo-colonialism disguised as NGO work.
An honest piece of advice for young people who lose hope: The Industrial Revolution was only about 250 years ago. Extraordinary changes can take place in very short periods of time - and the same can be true for regeneration. When I started working in environmental campaigning just 15 years ago it was absolutely not the mainstream conversation, and now we have people’s movements like Extinction Rebellion. It takes effort, but do keep faith.
Books that had a great impact on you / Must-Reads for any regenerative professional:
The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants by Karen Bakker. There are some incredibly exciting developments in the ability of machine learning to start interpreting animal communication in a way that our anthropocentric viewpoints have not been able to. “Google Translate for animals”! :)
In the Eye of the Wild by Nastassja Martin. It begins with an account of the French anthropologist Nastassja Martin’s near-fatal run-in with a Kamchatka bear in the mountains of Siberia. Martin’s professional interest is animism; she addresses philosophical questions about the relation of humankind to nature, and in her work, she seeks to partake as fully as she can in the lives of the indigenous peoples she studies. Her violent encounter with the bear, however, brings her face-to-face with something entirely beyond her ken: the untamed, the nonhuman, the animal, the wild. Severely mutilated, dazed with pain, she must discover what it means to have become, as the Even people call it, medka, a person who is half human, half bear.’
Movies / Documentaries you would watch all over again: Everybody in the Place: an Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992 by Jeremy Deller. A retrospective on rave culture set as a fascinating conversation between Deller and modern-day teenagers that ends up touching on technology, privacy, cultural media, and joy.
Music that makes you (and your heart) sing: I’m a sucker for a skittle beat. Pop songs yelled at karaoke. And a drop reverberating through your body in a big crowd of everyone dancing.
Places you travelled to that left a mark on you: Staying in the Amazon forest as a guest of the Munduruku people to perform a ‘sensory shoot’ of their lives. The data we gathered would be used to make a multisensory virtual reality piece to take their story to urban audiences and build support for their fight to establish their ancestral land rights in the jungle.
Events we should attend / Best places for networking (online or offline): I was recently invited to speak at The Symbiocene and was impressed with their use of social media, and how they’re managing to build an international community around climate campaigning.
Reasons to feel optimistic about our future in 2030: Our levels of computational ability are increasing exponentially.
Reasons to feel pessimistic about our future in 2030: Our levels of computational ability are increasing exponentially.
Regenerative Leadership qualities much needed today: Conversation, tolerance, and debate. Not everyone is going to agree with you, and that’s ok. Cancelling someone does not resolve the core issue.
The quote that inspires you:
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” (Maya Angelou)
Your quote that will inspire us:
