Subject 2735-E

This project explored the potential consequences of advanced healthcare technologies, specifically within the context of mental health treatment. The task was to identify an issue emerging from future medical progress and examine how design and future technology could influence and potentially assist health care in the future.

The starting point for this project was a personal fascination with mental health and experience with therapy besides the also increasing demand for psychological support at a larger scale. There is a common idea that, ultimately, the person who understands you best is yourself yet it is often difficult to access that understanding without external guidance. This led to the speculative question:

What would therapy look like if individuals could engage directly with another version of themselves?

In the scenario developed, scientific progress has made human cloning technologically possible and legally sanctioned under controlled medical frameworks. The project imagines Subject 2735-E a cloned individual created for the sole purpose of participating in therapeutic dialogue with their original counterpart. The clone holds identical memories, emotional patterns, and identity markers, theoretically making them the most accurate mirror for self-reflection. Whilst also being predesigned with a critical outlook, where that in the patient is often lacking.

Design Approach

• Research Phase: Examination of contemporary mental healthcare systems, the role of self-knowledge in therapy, and bioethical debates surrounding cloning and personhood.

• Concept Development: Formulating a therapeutic model where the clone functions as both a reflection and a diagnostic tool.

• Scenario Exploration: Designing the environment, protocols, and interpersonal dynamics of the therapy session.

• Narrative and Critique: Emphasizing the psychological, ethical, and emotional complexities that arise when one is confronted by a version of oneself.

  
  

Outcome 

Although the concept initially appears to offer deep self-understanding, the project ultimately reveals its dystopian potential. The presence of the clone raises questions about autonomy, identity, emotional burden, and the reduction of therapy to self-surveillance. Rather than offering comfort, the cloned counterpart may reinforce insecurities or produce conflict between versions of the self.

The project therefore functions as a critical design exploration not a proposal for real implementation, but a speculative tool to interrogate our assumptions about mental health care and the lengths we might go to in search of “perfect” psychological insight.

It asks: If technology allowed us to confront ourselves directly, would that lead to healing or would it magnify the very struggles we seek to resolve?

Reflection

In this project I was mainly responsible for the concept and working out a way to bring this concept to life. It was the first time developing something speculative further and more critically and it challenged me to design outside of the box whilst adhering to a certain ‘possible’ reality. Further I spend more time learning script writing and editing lines on the fly as well as manning the camera and experimenting with lightning and shots.