Participating in this residency has been an interesting and enlightening experience. The fact that those giving feedback could not physically interact with the things I made emphasized the challenges and opportunities introduced by being an artist working within the context of our networked society in general. Through text, video, and images I had to communicate the experience of physical objects.

The questions and comments I received on the blog helped me a lot in clarifying my ideas and sorting through the jumble of ideas I have surrounding any given piece. They also introduced new points and perspectives that I would not have immediately recognized, something I am very excited about and open to with the creation of new work. I was very impressed by the engagement and thoughtfulness of the reviewers comments. It was extremely helpful and encouraging to have a number of people spend time really considering the work before passing judgment.

Over the next couple months, I plan to finish building several versions of the conversacubes and try them out in different settings, soliciting feedback and observing behavior. I also am going to be working on a series of videos illustrating different scenarios and trying to tease …

a conversacube for every kitchen table, bedroom, and bar around the world! never experience another uncomfortable moment!

My plan for the next few weeks is two work on several tracks in parallel. The first will be developing some documentation for the table – mainly fictional scenario videos that hopefully allow viewers to engage with the table even if they can’t physically try it. The videos will depict various situations in which the table might be used and how it could affect interactions. In these scenarios I hope to draw out some of the questions and contradictions that formed the inspiration for creating this table.

At the same time, I plan to move on to a different piece that iterates on some of the same ideas I started to explore with the table. The piece is tentatively named ‘Conversacube’ and it will be a small box meant to form the centerpiece of any conversation situation. The box would sit in the middle of all conversants, with one face facing each person. On the top will be some kind of dial or input method for setting the current situation (ex: “first date”, “at a funeral”, “dinner with the in-laws”). …

while I’m in the midst of several things coming together, I thought I’d post a few people and projects that are somehow related and some writings and ideas I find floating around my head quite often… there are many others but these are a few quick highlights. (click through to the post for links)

Kelly Dobson’s ScreamBody, part of her Wearable Body Organs Series

critical design work by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby

WHAT IF? exhibition at the Science Gallery in Dublin in 2009, curated by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby

Michael Kontopoulos’ Measures of Discontent series

the work of Krzysztof Wodiczko and the Interrogative Design Group at MIT

Allan Kaprow and his explorations of Happenings and the intersection of art and life

the Situationists and Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle

writing of sociologist Erving Goffman, including The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life and Interaction Ritual

writing of Norbert Wiener and others on cybernetics

writing of philosopher and sociologist Michel Foucault on social institutions, power, control, and knowledge…

The conversation alteration table, the starting point for this residency exploration, is finished. While having others try it out, the feedback that I generally get is that it falls in some sort of uncomfortable place between a useful design object and an obvious art piece. I’m very interested in this space, but I think sometimes in seeking it out I end up with work that is too subtle for many people to connect with or understand.

Here are the main questions and things I was thinking about in developing this piece:

I am very interested in the potential of technology to affect our interactions. It happens constantly as new technologies are created, but there seems to be a tendency to move as quickly as possible toward faster, smaller, more, without taking time to reflect on the effects of our innovations. The table was intended both as a critique and an exploration.

I specifically wanted to make the feedback that people give non-automatic. For this reason, people turn pedals with their feet rather than using biofeedback or some kind of ambient analysis of the conversation. I wanted that moment of consciousness when a person becomes aware of …

I’ve been working a lot on the table in the last couple weeks and have begun thinking about how this object will inform further experiments along these lines. More about that coming soon, but for now here are some pictures of the technical parts.

The idea is that foot pedals attached to the base of the table can allow people to rate their current experience of being at the table with others in a discrete way. The pedals are attached to potentiometers underneath the table and connect to an Arduino that drives the whole thing. Also controlled by the Arduino is an LED light strip that dims or brightens in relation to the aggregate group pedal ratings.

I recently created Tools for Improved Social Interacting, a series of wearable devices that use sensors to condition the behavior of the wearer to better adapt to expected social behaviors. The Happiness Hat trains the wearer to smile more by measuring smile size, and turning a metal spike into the back of the head if the wearer stops smiling. The Body Contact Training Suit requires the wearer to maintain frequent body contact with another person in order to hear normally. The Anti-Daydreaming Device is a scarf that detects if the wearer is engaged in conversation with another person, and periodically shakes the wearer to remind him to pay attention and stop daydreaming.

The Tools series investigated the system of behavioral expectations we have of ourselves and others in social interactions on the level of individuals. I would like to expand on this work by looking at ways technology and feedback can be used among groups. These could be groups of acquaintances, strangers, friends, families, etc. Rather than wearable devices, I would like to focus on furniture and environments – that is, things used by several people at once.

How do our surroundings influence and mediate our  social interactions, and …