M Dougherty

Manifest 1.0

A series of live performances for the musician Sunni Colón, between concert and art installation. The performer played hidden inside a light chamber, every ticket was tuned to the person holding it, and a scent carried the night home.

Year
2017
Role
Creative director, spatial design, interaction direction, scent
Music
Sunni Colón
With
The Family
Venue
Founders Lab NYC, Brooklyn
Architect
Jules Molloy
A round room lit violet and pink, with white cushions circling a glowing cylindrical chamber at the center under a ring of light.
The chamber at the center of the room. Photo: Jules Molloy.

About the work

Manifest played on loneliness and the layers of human connection. The goal was to bring Sunni and his audience together with more vulnerability than a standard show allows.

I designed the space with Sunni, worked with the architect Jules Molloy to formalize it, and built it with the Founders Lab team and The Family. I directed the interaction design and made the scent.

The space

Sunni performed every night hidden inside a sound-reactive light chamber in the center of the room. The audience lounged around it, part of the architecture of sound and light, so attention moved from the performer to the music.

Inside the chamber: a keyboard and microphone stand ringed by pink light tubes behind a translucent wall.
Inside the chamber, where Sunni played unseen. Photo: Jules Molloy.

The ticket

Buying a ticket meant writing three sentences about being alone. Software read the emotional tone of each story and made a unique ticket, and the room answered each guest with their own color, motion and sound.

A silhouetted figure stands in a rounded doorway glowing yellow and pink, reflected on a glossy floor.
The entrance. Photo: Jules Molloy.
A silhouetted figure dances in a rounded doorway of white and violet light.
A guest in the light. Photo: Jules Molloy.

The scent

Phones were not allowed inside, so the memory of the night had to come another way. I made a scent that filled the room, and each guest took it home as they left.

A frosted roller vial with a chrome cap beside a copper foil pouch printed Manifest 1.0, a collaboration with Tetsu.
The scent each guest took home.

The experience

Film of the experience. Director of photography: Griffin Yu.

The sound

A team of audio engineers, sound designers and electronic artists built a quadraphonic system that washed the room in layered, responsive sound.

A white fabric canopy glowing blue above the top of the chamber.
The canopy over the chamber. Photo: Jules Molloy.

Shown at

  • 2017Manifest 1.0, Founders Lab NYC, Brooklyn

Press

Credits

Music: Sunni Colón. Creative director, Manifest 1.0: M Dougherty. Art director, The Family: Yo-Yo Lin. Creative director, The Family: Steve Dabal. Executive producer: Jordan Caldwell. Sound: Dillon Pace, Joanna Fang, David Britton, Michael Matchen, Chris Robinson. Environment: Jules Molloy (architect), Dominick Chang (lighting), Robert Morris, Jay Miller, Jordan Frand. Scent design and perfume: M Dougherty. Content: John Provencher, Griffin Yu, Filippo Nesci, Zack Filkoff, Jesse Sperling. Interactive: Skylar Jessen (interactive design and art direction), Tara O’Con, Wipawe Sirikolkarn, Aaron Parsekian.