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 out some of the questions and contradictions I see in this concept. I also have some work to do still on the documentation of the table. All of this should be finished by early October. If you are interested, you can continue to follow along on my personal blog (www.lauren-mccarthy.com/inmotion) where I post a mix of current news and project updates.

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”). Each outward face of the box will have a small screen and a microphone embedded just inside. As the conversation progresses, each person will be personally prompted with directions or lines to keep the conversation running smoothly. The microphones will record audio levels (and perhaps tone?) and the prompts will be modified accordingly, to ensure conversation that is balanced by all participants.

The intent is to make something that on one hand, is suggestive of an actual tool that could use technology to potentially improve interactions, and on the other hand, critical of our dependence on technology and choreographed social routines, hinting at a dystopic future where we sacrifice all autonomy to avoid having to face what we don’t already understand. The questions that I’m trying to draw out, as with the table, deal with which of these directions we’re heading. Or is it both? Are we consciously aware of the future we’re building with all of our technological innovation and “progress”?

conversacube sketches

The modes of exploration with this piece will be in two veins, similar to the table. First, I want to create boxes and test them in the real world (coffee shops, bars, homes) and collect feedback from test users. Second, I want to create a series of short advertisements, that explain the product and suggest possible use scenarios and solicit more test users.

Next steps:
(1) physical design of conversocubes
(2) electronics design – obtain parts
(3) physical fabrication
(4) content creation / interaction design – what should the logic be for the prompts? how often and how much?
(5) testing in real world situations (find venues, participants, solicit feedback)
(6) video creation (storyboard, shoot, edit)

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 himself evaluating his experience, quantifies it, and decides whether or not to act. In this moment – what are the factors considered to rate one’s experience? What matters and what does not? What does it mean to anonymously provide feedback? How does it differ from what is communicated through verbal or body language? What are the things we feel uncomfortable saying, and why?

In our current networked social culture, we are constantly rating – videos, thoughts, activities, actions. “Like”, “dislike”, “3/5 stars”, “retweet”, “friended” are extremely stripped down ways we can instantly communicate, but what depth of relationships, ideas, emotions lay behind these mechanisms? Does our current culture provide a platform for sustaining and developing this depth of human interaction, or are we growing more isolated and distant in our constant connectivity? This table explores these questions by reducing all conversation to the movement of a lever and the modulation of light.

One person that saw my table commented, ‘but if I had this in my living room I think I would go crazy.’ What is it about this scenario that seems to explicitly wrong? How different is it from the ways we interact with each other regularly? Sometimes no words need to be said for an expectation or a judgment to be clear.

In a more optimistic direction, what if technology really could positively affect our interactions? Is there a possibility for feedback to be leveraged to help people toward new, more enriching experiences? Could a system like this potentially accelerate new relationships, pushing past barriers of unfamiliarity and obligatory small talk?

These are a few of the things on my mind while making this, but the table is also intended for each person to read it in their own way. In viewing in virtually and having no opportunity to actually experience the object, it perhaps requires a bit more imagination and engagement on the part of the viewer. What could be done to facilitate this? Scenario videos? Actual use trials with documentation?

While thinking about the documentation and presentation of this table, I’d like to move on to a number of other experiments. More to come on that soon!

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.

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 what effects will shifting and manipulating them have on our relationships?

I am proposing a series of works that explore this area, beginning with a table that provides feedback to its users on the current collective subjective experience of sharing the table together. The base of the table will have knobs that the table sitters can adjust with their feet to indicate their current level of enjoyment of their experience. The table top will light up or dim in response to the sum rating of everyone at the table.

Simultaneously, I would like to develop a performance/participation-based event that allows viewers to interact with the pieces and with each other, discovering for themselves the ways in which their systems of social behavior are affected.

The table would serve as a beginning point for further development of this concept of environments that can alter our interactions. Another possible direction to explore is interventions in public environments. I am interested in creating objects and manipulations that work within the context of existing spaces. In doing so, I would attempt to shift the normal functions and programming of these environments to increase awareness of underlying structures and discover new possibilities of use.