My Thesis:
Design Across Boundaries - Shared Experiences in the Digital Context
Wednesday, May 15 is Thesis Defense day at the Dynamic Media Institute. Come join us at 9:00am in the Tower’s Trustee’s Room.
With the new FB Graph Search, I would like to share this work in progress:
Capsules
Capsule is a family photo data base archive which enables a new experience of navigation, collection, exploration and discovery of the photography collection. The pictures are aligned by type of space, type of event, visual (shape, form, color), age, objects, time, face expression, gesture, and posture.
Capsules is a visualization tool which offers a new form of digital photography collection. It creates meaningful relationships between the photos so that the user can explore unexpected relationships, new connections, and reinterpretations, and discover new narratives of past moments.
What an artist is trying to do for people is bring them closer to something, because of course art is about sharing: you wouldn’t be an artist if you didn’t want to share an experience, a thought.
“
| — | David Hockney |
Partners
Partners is a series of paintings of random users with whom I chat in the Chatroulette platform. While I chatted with people, I captured the screen with their images and printed the frames. Using these frames as references, I drew the portraits in a large scale, using mixed techniques on cardboard.
The users are not aware of the fact that they were documented and drawn. Moreover, because of the random feature of the platform I have no way to connect them. The only information I have is the exact time of our virtual meeting (time and date) and their image.
Wheels + Legs, MIT Media Lab
My app design (Spike) is being presented in the exhibition “Wheels + Legs” - a new exhibition at the MIT Media Lab about personal mobility in the digital age.
If there’s a simple, easy design principle that binds everything together, it’s probably about starting with the people.
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| — | Bill Moggridge (via brianlucid) |
Chatroulette Experiments
“Chatroulette experiments” is a series of experiments where I interacted with random users through the Chatroulette Platform.
In my first experience, the user and I, made a few shared sketches. We doodled together, each time someone added another detail. Then, I cleared the art board and started to draw his portrait. I repeated this experiment and drew over 20 people.
The interaction was Intriguing and engaging. There was a common pattern in the users’ behaviors. At the beginning of the conversation we both were suspicious, isolated and apathetic. The user was curious about my actions, trying to figure out what am I doing. Once they realized I was drawing their portraits there was the “aha moment” - the defining moment when the user recognized that they were being drawn.
The face expression changed dramatically, people were surprised and a bit confused. They start to smile and giggle. They became friendly and seemed happy. While I was drawing, many of the users were unconsciously imitating my face expression and body gestures. We became physically similar. I felt that this interaction was an authentic user experience which bridged the gap between two people.
