Projects Briefly
These are project briefs, presented through images the document the hands-on work that goes into the projects' construction. One of the design principles here is the importance of presenting the projects as craftwork and as materializations; that is, the process within which these projects come to be. These projects are more precisely processes, and the objective is as much learning the various crafts involved — CAD, electronics, software, materials, "theory" — as it is the creation of a "product" of this process that reveals these crafts and elicits new, playful and curious kinds of interaction rituals.I find the possibility of individual creation of objects that embody their own ideas akin to the ability of today's more tractable media for expressing one's ideas, like blogs, or photo sharing and such, to create a renaissance of individual expressive objects. These objects are embodiments of individual ideas, desires, whims, playful sensibilities, opinions and jokes. Although today the possibility of mass individual object creation poses many practical problems, the first practical problem is knowledge. Fifteen years ago when I first explored the area of DIY device design the knowledge and expertise necessary was well-protected and ensconced in a very private vault. Increasingly this knowledge is much more widely available, in part because the process and craftwork of going from an idea to its materialization can be shared. Revealing the "handwork" involved, and the mistakes, lessons-learned and overall "how-to" aspects of the work makes it all the more likely that knowledge circulates.
This work fits within the context of "design fiction" and critical design, a context in which designed objects "articulate" a critique, or help tell a story meant to inspire reflection and consideration of unassailable aspects of consumer, design and product culture. These critical/fictional objects make meaning through embodied critique, as "theory objects." This context is one where objects should go beyond critique and enter into the realm of responses and alternatives. For this proposed project, these critical provocations are around cartography, modern god's-eye-view maps, and the inviolable Google Maps. Designed objects of this sort should be functional, instantiated, rhetorical "devices" that speak within larger debates, discussions or stories that circulate around the idioms in which the object circulates. Influences from practicing artists include Tom Sachs, Anthony Dunne, Fiona Raby and Tom Dixon, the novelists Italo Calvino, Philip K. Dick, and the designer and author Denis Wood.
The visual documentation for these projects is provided in an image gallery. You can move through the gallery by clicking thumbnails or the main image, or using the left or right arrow keys. Some images have brief notes, which can be read while hovering over a "Notes" link that appears in the thumbnail drawer if the image has any annotations.
* Flavonoid (2006 — ) is a speculative near-future object that devices to link the physical, 1st world to the digital 2nd world. The object is a whimsical monitoring device that correlates physical action into digital representation. Flavonoid records physical movement through the use of a 3-axis accelerometer. It also records over how much time such movement occurs, so that quick active movement counts as less significant than sustained movement. Finally, in a near-future speculative interaction design, holding the device adds to the significance of the recording ritual, so that the fetish aspect of digital mobile devices is included in the monitoring algorithm.
The product of this monitoring ritual is a digital signature that can be applied to a variety of other devices to create a series of time-motion interaction rituals. For example, as part of this object family is a project called PSX, a new kind of digital games controller. Based on the digital signature of one's Flavonoid, the PSX game controller allows for a certain amount of "power" that a player's game avatar, or character, can have. If your Flavonoid digital signature is high, your character will have a corresponding power level in the game. If you've been sitting around on the sofa all day, your character will appear lethargic and cranky.
The motivation is to provoke a reconsideration of the divide between "physical" and "digital" worlds. My conceit is that there is that the binary produces an impulse to privilege one over the other in certain arguments. For example, the digital has the advantage of not requiring the kind of physical resources — energy to move information, for example. But this makes it too easy to ignore the fact that digital technology is also quite physical in its use of resources, for example energy to maintain computer data centers where the Internet "is"; or the landfills that overflow with discarded electronic devices; or the material waste left over from often toxic processes that go into fabricating electronic components.
The product of this monitoring ritual is a digital signature that can be applied to a variety of other devices to create a series of time-motion interaction rituals. For example, as part of this object family is a project called PSX, a new kind of digital games controller. Based on the digital signature of one's Flavonoid, the PSX game controller allows for a certain amount of "power" that a player's game avatar, or character, can have. If your Flavonoid digital signature is high, your character will have a corresponding power level in the game. If you've been sitting around on the sofa all day, your character will appear lethargic and cranky.
The motivation is to provoke a reconsideration of the divide between "physical" and "digital" worlds. My conceit is that there is that the binary produces an impulse to privilege one over the other in certain arguments. For example, the digital has the advantage of not requiring the kind of physical resources — energy to move information, for example. But this makes it too easy to ignore the fact that digital technology is also quite physical in its use of resources, for example energy to maintain computer data centers where the Internet "is"; or the landfills that overflow with discarded electronic devices; or the material waste left over from often toxic processes that go into fabricating electronic components.
* SlowMessenger (2007 — ) is an instant messaging device that delivers messages exceptionally slowly. Built into the device is a messaging technology that unfolds its content based on an interface that borrows from the traditions of long-form letter writing, hand-carried mail sent through the post. The instant messaging device connects digital information channels — such as the Internets — to physical information channels — such as streets, hands and the friction of human contact.
SlowMessenger works by simply receiving the message from the message sender. Once the message is received, it is gradually displayed, one letter at a time based on two factors. The first is the relative amount of time that the device is held; the second is the amount of time the device is carried while walking. These factors — holding-by-hand and walking-with — are interaction rituals key to the conveyance of intimate messages. In “another era” that is not the “digitally networked era”, “taking the air” and “perambulating” were crucial interaction rituals for maintaining and knitting together “social network” relations. Friends and intimate couples would “walk hand-in-hand” and discuss matters on their minds. In this “other era”, in times when friends were not in proximity, perhaps because one or the other was off to war or at sea, long-form “letters” were composed to substitute for physical proximity and communication. Postal mail was used to maintain communications and “stay in touch” even if “physical touch” was not, in a literal sense, a possibility.
In this “digitally networked era” communications mechanics are designed to take advantage of the efficiencies of electronic networks. In this way, contact is perpetual and ubiquitous, often resulting in nearly meaningless communiques and dispatches. By “slowing down” the instantaneous message, the device saves time by allowing one to avoid inane drivel and focus on a meaningful connection to one special person.
SlowMessenger works by simply receiving the message from the message sender. Once the message is received, it is gradually displayed, one letter at a time based on two factors. The first is the relative amount of time that the device is held; the second is the amount of time the device is carried while walking. These factors — holding-by-hand and walking-with — are interaction rituals key to the conveyance of intimate messages. In “another era” that is not the “digitally networked era”, “taking the air” and “perambulating” were crucial interaction rituals for maintaining and knitting together “social network” relations. Friends and intimate couples would “walk hand-in-hand” and discuss matters on their minds. In this “other era”, in times when friends were not in proximity, perhaps because one or the other was off to war or at sea, long-form “letters” were composed to substitute for physical proximity and communication. Postal mail was used to maintain communications and “stay in touch” even if “physical touch” was not, in a literal sense, a possibility.
In this “digitally networked era” communications mechanics are designed to take advantage of the efficiencies of electronic networks. In this way, contact is perpetual and ubiquitous, often resulting in nearly meaningless communiques and dispatches. By “slowing down” the instantaneous message, the device saves time by allowing one to avoid inane drivel and focus on a meaningful connection to one special person.
* PSX (2007 — ) is a game controller designer for the Playstation 2. The controller must be "fueled" before play with the use of an attachable Flavonoid device. By carrying Flavonoid with you, you generate fuel for the controller. The controller will "play" only as long as there is fuel available. When the fuel begins to run out, the controller behaves sluggishly and finally gives out completely.
This photo gallery shows the evolution of the concept through the construction and prototyping phase. There are two approaches being explored, using a variety of microcontrollers, design-technologies, prototyping and testing equipment.
The initial concept is to design the controller specifically for Katamari Damacy and the series of Grand Theft Auto video games. These games are ones in which the avatar in the game does a lot of walking and running, seemingly with a nearly infinite reserve of energy. The "theory" embodied in the PSX controller is meant to disrupt the conventional understanding of the relationship between physical activity in 1st Life and virtual-physical-digital activity in 2nd Life digital worlds.
This photo gallery shows the evolution of the concept through the construction and prototyping phase. There are two approaches being explored, using a variety of microcontrollers, design-technologies, prototyping and testing equipment.
The initial concept is to design the controller specifically for Katamari Damacy and the series of Grand Theft Auto video games. These games are ones in which the avatar in the game does a lot of walking and running, seemingly with a nearly infinite reserve of energy. The "theory" embodied in the PSX controller is meant to disrupt the conventional understanding of the relationship between physical activity in 1st Life and virtual-physical-digital activity in 2nd Life digital worlds.
* Worry Wand (2008) is a design-technology-art project that explores two aspects of my practice. The first is understanding the work that links ideas to materializations in the era of "what you model is what you get." The second is deliberately revealing the process and craftwork that goes into the design, engineering and aesthetics aspects when exploring the links between ideas and materializations.
The object itself is a speculative near-future talisman. It derives from the tradition found in many religious cultures of the prayer bead, or worry bead, also known in Greek culture as a Kombolói.
The speculation designed into the object is that the form of such things can be based upon the act of touch and the calming influences of color. The object changes in response to the degree to which the handler has completed a sequence of prayers, or the degree to which the handler has managed to calm their nerves.
What I show here in this photo gallery is precisely this process of moving from an idea to its materialization over a period of approximately 10 days. Crucial to my preferred process is moving quickly from an idea to its materialization. This is an 10 day extended sketching exercise, but one that moves beyond paper and pen into a more complex materialization. I use digital design tools for 3D modeling to create physical objects with plastic printers, electronics design tools to create circuit boards that can be quickly manufactured in Asia, and the craftwork of constructing functioning electrical prototypes. The objective of this process, and revealing the process, is a strong commitment I have to craftwork, and understanding design, technology and art not reified, obscure social practices, but one's that involve hands working with material.
These are human social practices that describe a possibility space of other kinds of human social practices. In the design of the Worry Wand is embedded a specific people-practice. The design of new kinds of objects, once the process is revealed, makes it possible to imagine other people turning their ideas into material form, perhaps just once, for themselves, as a kind of individuated self-expression, or more practical way of expressing one's own ideas.
The object itself is a speculative near-future talisman. It derives from the tradition found in many religious cultures of the prayer bead, or worry bead, also known in Greek culture as a Kombolói.
The speculation designed into the object is that the form of such things can be based upon the act of touch and the calming influences of color. The object changes in response to the degree to which the handler has completed a sequence of prayers, or the degree to which the handler has managed to calm their nerves.
What I show here in this photo gallery is precisely this process of moving from an idea to its materialization over a period of approximately 10 days. Crucial to my preferred process is moving quickly from an idea to its materialization. This is an 10 day extended sketching exercise, but one that moves beyond paper and pen into a more complex materialization. I use digital design tools for 3D modeling to create physical objects with plastic printers, electronics design tools to create circuit boards that can be quickly manufactured in Asia, and the craftwork of constructing functioning electrical prototypes. The objective of this process, and revealing the process, is a strong commitment I have to craftwork, and understanding design, technology and art not reified, obscure social practices, but one's that involve hands working with material.
These are human social practices that describe a possibility space of other kinds of human social practices. In the design of the Worry Wand is embedded a specific people-practice. The design of new kinds of objects, once the process is revealed, makes it possible to imagine other people turning their ideas into material form, perhaps just once, for themselves, as a kind of individuated self-expression, or more practical way of expressing one's own ideas.
* PDPal (2001-2004) is an art-technology project that used a Palm PDA (personal digital assistant) application to create a "map" of personal-digital experience based on a set of emotive coordinates — Social, Preposition, Texture, Speed and Weather. Based on how your experience was charted along these axes, your map was delivered. The “map” was a kind of pictogram of the intersection of these coordinates.
PDPal combines a number of concepts in an effort to create a disruptive designed object. The "theoretical concepts center largely on maps and map-making. PDPal attempts to create a different kind of map — one whose coordinates are based on these personal/emotional coordinates, rather than the conventional latitude/longitude or street address coordinates.
PDPal combines a number of concepts in an effort to create a disruptive designed object. The "theoretical concepts center largely on maps and map-making. PDPal attempts to create a different kind of map — one whose coordinates are based on these personal/emotional coordinates, rather than the conventional latitude/longitude or street address coordinates.
In three editions, PDPal was exhibited at:
- Eyebeam Atelier, NYC "Beta Launch" show and artists' residency 2002
- Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN 2003
- Transmediale Festival, Berlin 2003
- University of Minnesota Design Institute, "Twin Cities Knowledge Maps" 2003
- Times Square, NYC "Creative Time Presents" 2003-2004
- Whitney Museum of American Art, Artport 2003
- Walter Phillips Gallery, The Banff Centre, Alberta Canada "Database Imaginary".2004
Denis Wood was commissioned to write a short essay inspired by PDPal.
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