Good Times. Click Here.

good times. click here. enjoy. 

If You Wanna Know if It’s Gonna Work…

Tonight we went over to Christiane’s house to set up a scenario to see how the technologies would work in a real world environment.  This term is a lot about trial and error, but more about trial, trial and oh, not to forget, more trial. Good ideas and good design don’t happen at the snap of a finger. It takes reiteration after reiteration. It takes process and development and, most of all…time. Design research isn’t just about ideation, making and then using. It’s also about all the things that happen in between those stages that define design research, and that help define design researchers.

Wall Visualizations…

I talked and looked at a few sites with Christiane, and we found some cool examples of how the texts could appear after a few Processing codes have been put through them. The following are links to the sites and some images.

Link to the typography video.

Here are some more images from a Processing site that actually coded most of the animation.

Link to the Processing Demo- NextText

So in addition, I’ve contacted a friend of mine who is a wonderful programmer to see if he could possibly integrate the Processing code into the live Twitter site and apply it so visually it’ll be more interesting on a projection. NextText is actually the “application” that you could create new behaviors and customize code to make what you want with text that’s input. It’s just up to the programmer now to somehow feed the text messages into the code so that it automatically animates everything. Rad, huh?

-Mia.

A New Family Album?

by Mari Nakano
re: Text Wall

The question arose: What will happen to all the text messages that get projected on the wall? Will they just go away at the end of the day? Will they be collected in a database online?

The idea of the text message projections on a wall had several goals: to trigger conversation, promote family gathering, create storytelling experiences and provide a space in the house for nostalgia or reminiscing.

But where do all these words, memories and moments go at the end of the day? Is there value in keeping the messages or is it better that they just float away, never to be seen again?

With those questions, we’ve been looking at ways on how we can visualize the text messages in a way that is memorable. A printed object seemed like the best avenue, so we looked into various ways on how we could visualize the text messages. Some of them include:

Text message postcard sets

and refrigerator magnets

For now, we’re focusing on a book that can reflect the idea of a family photo album. Perhaps this text wall outcome will be something that won’t replace the traditional family photo album, but instead will add to the memory-keeping objects of the household. The goal would be to produce a book that can interpret the text messages in various ways. Idealistically, the wall would be able to transfer the text data and send it to an on-demand book printer who will then be able to send the family a bound book every few months.

Some things we’ve been suggesting as text interpretations:

text messages as poetry

and color visualizations of the frequency of texts and the general mood of individuals

The book might also include a single text on it’s own spread, a list of text messages in chronological order per person or by the entire family, screen shots of the wall projection at the end of each day, and other color visuals interpreting text frequency and daily average mood of the family.

As we continue through our few remaining weeks of experimentation, we will be keeping in mind how this book will play it’s role in a fruitful way for the families.

Third Object

- The “third object”

- Changing and playing

- Physical relationship of two things /two people within a family home.

the first idea

the third object: material thing, it can be seen or felt anything that is visible, tangible, stable in form a thing, person which thought or action is directed thing with reference to the impression made on the mind or the feeling or emotion elicited in an observer – an object of curiosity and pity.

physical relationship: exercise, pertaining, touch, hug, pat, physically demonstrative, requiring, characterized by, contact, CONNECTED with, bodily BELONGING, a reflex response to physical stimuli physical properties physical characteristics of things

what to trigger: to express or feel disapproval, dislike, or distaste; aversety curiosity and pity refuse action, speech or permit both thought, affection, disapproval BETWEEN
2 FAMILY MEMBERS

Taking their favorite “Third Object” and turning it into a “two man working third object”

It is the tough me together and lets trigger something machine.

They need to identify their favorite object in the house that everyone interacts with – lets say the TV remote control. We take it away form them and give it back in a different format. This is just one example but we will do this with more of their favorite objects. Take it away and replace it. The replacement has the same functions as the old one.

EXAMPLE: the TV remote control. No longer does it look like a remote control and no longer can only one person work it, instead two people have to work together in order to make the TV function at all. Lets say the new TV remote control is huge lone foamy piece of sausage with sensors inside. In order to turn the TV on, they both have to jump on it – each person on one end – this will turn the TV on. If they want to change a channel they both have to lift it up and so on. it will take physical effort for 2 people if one person want to change the channel he/she always needs the other person to agree and work with them. This might end up in a nice conversation.

the sausage as a remote TV control

2. ideas

(frustration-sausage)
what other shape / function could the sausage have? This has been a pretty frustrating process. We all had so many questions and were trying to figure out “how does the sausage relate to streaming media”

1. Well what about if the sausage is not a TV remote anymore, but rather this object that has a screen embedded. The screen is activated by certain actions. (the sausage has numerous sensors under its skin)

2. The sausage controls real time / edited time TV. Some TV or screen channels would be normal TV (edited time) and some would be real time streams. We would also allow individual family members to pick their streams within their interests and dream worlds.

THE REAL ACTION:

Out of this we made some movies

1. role on the floor video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICwnWbRcamI

2. MDP Love video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjdbGRPFxlY

3. Media Mountain video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrAo-nKTf4o

Back to the beginning:

very frustrating.

However, we will continue trying to work it out, as we speak. We ordered some sensors today. Be ready for an update soon.

yes a “third object” can kill!

Sink!

Wall!

Table Project: How streaming media can affect family rituals.

Last week, we set up a web cam in the cafeteria here at Art Center. The web cam was fixated on a single table from above. By placing a web cam over the dinner table, we are turning a family ritual into a ritual around streaming media. How does this change the conversation around the dinner table? We are also looking at the idea of co-presence. By streaming a second family into the home, we are touching upon existence value. Do the families interact with each other as they eat? We are looking for ways to make the interaction meaningful. Does the interaction make this experiment sticky?

Cafeteria Webcam Experiment 01

Cafeteria Webcam Experiment 02

For the next iteration of this project, we set up two tables with web cams, and added projectors pointed towards the table. We found this iteration to be troublesome. The feed could not be seen very clearly in normal room light. Even after shutting off the lights, the feed was still hard to decipher. These problems have allowed us to focus on using plasma screen televisions. If we turn the plasma screen into a table, we can get a clearer stream of the families.

Proposal 2: For this version of our project, we are aiming to have the family’s dinner experience altered by having the second family being streamed on a plasma screen located at the end of the table.

This is the new technology chart for our project.