The elevator is a confined space where people often share fleeting moments with strangers, moments that can be socially awkward. RhythmGate reimagines this familiar space as a multisensory interactive environment where subtle social dynamics can be sensed and expressed.

The elevator floor is divided into four zones, each corresponding to a unique human voice. Using a pressure-sensitive floor, an Arduino board, and an overhead camera, the system tracks passengers’ positions and movements in real time. When someone steps from one zone to another, voices fade in and out, like editing moments in time, creating a living sound composition. As more people enter, the voices layer together, forming a rich soundscape that reflects increasing social density. The visuals evolve from a single quiet screen at the beginning to twenty-five simultaneous screens at the end, representing the progression from interactions with system-generated sound to the system being gradually overridden, ultimately breaking the silence and enabling human-to-human communication.

The work uses technology as a subtle medium rather than a distraction, revealing hidden social moments in daily life. It transforms an ordinary elevator ride into a fleeting, delicate, and beautiful dialogue among passengers, technology, and space. By mapping pressure, tracking movement, and layering sound according to zones, RhythmGate treats the elevator floor as a temporal stage, making each movement an expression of social micro-behaviors. It allows audiences to experience and reflect on the often-unseen rules of social interaction in confined spaces, offering a participatory, multisensory platform that redefines relationships between humans, space, and technology.