BILLY DUVALLE

®2024

Film manipulation : A museum experience

Our project draws inspiration from Matthew Cetta’s Photogenic Alchemy work, which embraces unpredictability and creative risk in film. His work transforms the photographic process into an emotional and experimental journey, where imperfections become part of the art itself. Cetta’s approach highlights the beauty of chance, encouraging hands-on exploration and a deeper connection with the making process through film’s tactile and expressive nature.

Client

project

DELIVERABLES

RESEARCH

PROTOTYPES

Experience

Year

2025

Role

RESEARCH DESIGN

Film manipulation is an artistic pursuit to alter a film photo after it has been captured on film. Exposing this niche of photography to an audience that cares about art was the primary goal behind choosing Film Manipulation as our Museum theme.
The goal was not to teach film manipulation as a technique, but to encourage exploration of unconventional processes through tangible interactions.
  • Who is Matthew Cetta

    Experimental film photographer based in New York

    Develops film using unconventional substances

    Explores chaos, destruction, and the limits of tradition

    Cetta works with a modified Holga camera for his work.

    Uses techniques like burning and freezing for distortion.

    Instead of using regular photo chemicals, he develops his film using everyday liquids like wine, bleach, and even coca-cola.

  • Challenges

    Adding a learnability factor to the interactions.

    Embodied interactions with a delight factor.

    Not making the interactions tutorial like.

    Matthew Cetta’s work is compelling because it embraces unpredictability and creative risk in film, using the medium not just to tell stories but to express emotion and provoke surprise. Rather than prioritizing polish or control, his approach treats film as an exploratory tool, one that values hands-on making and process-driven experimentation. This openness invites viewers (and collaborators) into a space where discovery, intuition, and unexpected outcomes are central to the creative experience.

    His work inspired our team to be more creative with our concepts for the museum as well.

    Why him over others?

A metaphor for breaking through the traditional sense of film photography

Break the mould
An introduction to his manipulated photographs, through the use of proxemics.

The display features an e-paper screen overlaid with a glass panel containing various liquids from coca cola, cough syrup to bleach. When a button is pressed, selected chemicals flow across the glass, visually altering the digital image beneath.

Film Soup
Understand the effects of how chemicals can alter the image.
Visitors explore how chemical processes can transform photographic imagery.

Use of proxemics to reveal the prints like its just developed.

Drying Line
Zigzag-shaped hallway designed to mimic a traditional darkroom drying line.
Focuses more on the final product

Cameras pin point and track your visit and build your trail in real time

The Trail
Get a postcard with your trail in the form of a manipulated photo.
Works as a physical memorabilia to remember this museum by.

The installation use motion (digital displays using Computer Vision with depth) sensors, allowing visitors’ movements to directly influence the visuals on screen.

This space translates the tactile manipulation of film into a digital experience.
Focused on burned, frozen and electrified effects.
Emulsion
Final Concept
  • Cultural probe
  • Interviews
  • Critique
To achieve this goal we conducted a bunch of studies like :

The probe revealed that imagery prompts people to reflect deeply on past and future narratives rather than the present, guiding us to design a slowed, focused exhibition that uses controlled interactions and surprise to foster intimate, personal emotional connections.

The interviews revealed that meaningful photographic work emerges from intentional process and emotional authenticity, showing how both expert and hobbyist photographers value hands-on experimentation, imperfection, and personal storytelling as tools for expressing identity.

Through our critiques we were able to finalize concepts ideas, methods we could consider to get more information on our topic and finalizing a strong user base that can resonate with out topic.

Cultural probe insights

Interview insights

Critique insights

All these insights gave me the base to create prototypes :

Through rapid prototyping we came up with quick but easily discardable ideas to come up with interactions for our museum.

We also did a bunch of sketching ideation to develop some of our prototypes into full fledged concepts that would fit well into our museum.

Rapid Prototyping

Sketching ideation

My Contribution and Learnings
  • My contributions

  • It involved initial research to define the museum’s target audience, followed by realistic and rapid prototyping.

    1.

  • Ideating the final concept using the prototypes and sketches. As well as making the final frames of 'Film Soup' and 'Break the Mould' Phases

    2.
  • Learnings

  • The project reinforced how thoughtful interaction design can translate abstract or complex concepts into experiences that feel accessible and intuitive.

    1.

  • A major learning was balancing physical, hands-on technology with abstract learning outcomes so that interactions feel cohesive rather than disconnected.

    2.

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