Feeling disoriented can be commonplace and, if brief in duration, surpassed by getting one's bearings and continuing on with the intentional forward motion we tend to carry on. But within these events of disorientation there exists a potential that is often unfulfilled. The sensation of being disoriented evokes a process of reorientation. As a catalyst for the perceptual body-wide process of reorientation, such an event of disorientation can be drawn out, and to refrain from ending this process offers a generative potential. Holding back from a reoriented position, or to prolong this process of reorientation, can hold open a window of opportunity to change how we relate to what surrounds us. In light of this potential, the sensation of being disoriented could be reconsidered as positive, offering a state of being more considerate of the shift from sensation to perception. Engaging with this experience may also be a heuristic way to intricately pick apart the mechanisms through which we perceive surroundings and orient ourselves, mechanisms that are constantly at play though often below the surface of attention.
Considering the role that this event of disorientation plays in our ongoing process of relating-to the world begs the question of whether this happenstance occurence could be intentionally instigated. Could environments be designed to elicit a degree of disorientation, and thus the need to reorient oneself? What strategies for evoking this sensation, in a controlled fashion, might direct this process towards a new relation to what surrounds us? Through stories of disorientation, and a discussion of art historical examples, repetition and doubling come to the fore as strategies to catalyze this process. Working within the overlap between the sense modalities of vision and proprioception, artistic methods utilized in architectural art installations offer a way to evoke a critical rethinking of our relations to surroundings by taking advantage of catalytic potentials already present. This presents a practical example of a philosophical immanent critique, as seen through the lense of somaesthetics. Merging sensorial experience of disorientation with artistic creations opens up possibilities for novelty to emerge.