# Project Description

SOMA

Xinming Chen

Summary

Final work

Design Player

Design Player

College London College of Communication

Course MA Graphic Media Design

Graduation year 2025

SOMA is an interactive game project that explores how contemporary self-tracking and sleep optimization technologies reshape our relationship with rest, the body, and personal space. It critically examines the role of design within digital capitalism, highlighting how terms like "care," "comfort," and "health" can be redefined as mechanisms of control. The project uses sleep as a lens to investigate how sleep-tracking apps transform the bedroom from a private sanctuary into a space for data extraction and emotional manipulation. SOMA combines visual research, critical theory, and practical experimentation, offering a speculative experience that challenges how technology and optimization reshape personal comfort and privacy.

Final work

SOMA

SOMA is an interactive game installation and video work, featuring a predictive design that constructs a room monitored by a future smart sleep system. In this room, players will follow various instructions to achieve perfect sleep. The work is aimed at users influenced by self-quantification, and visually contrasts gentle cartoon illustrations with potential critical issues, hoping to unveil hidden conspiracies behind seemingly benign things. Ultimately, SOMA serves both as a design experiment and a critical tool, challenging how contemporary technology reshapes our relationship with comfort, privacy, and control.

Research and process

Share this project

SOMA is an interactive game project that explores how contemporary self-tracking and sleep optimization technologies reshape our relationship with rest, the body, and personal space. It critically examines the role of design within digital capitalism, highlighting how terms li...

A link to this page has been added to your clipboard

Browse related work

Body

Futures

Health & Wellbeing

Identity

Games

Video