UNRAVELLING THE INFRA-ORDINARY

INTRODUCTION

DESCRIPTION

Design/make/craft one or more objects, spaces (or both) that address changes in physical and/or social behaviour in public and private space due to digital devices. The final design must be based on findings from your initial research and should relate to a clearly articulated perspective. Examples of possible perspectives are: critical, speculative, practical, visionary or other.

KEYWORDS AND FACTS

WI-FI
Overflowing Informations
Exhibition Through Phone
Out Of Battery can change you Plans
Biohacking

OBSERVATION

LIBRARY

MARKTHAL

FINDINGS

At the Markthal we noticed that:

about half of the people there eventually would take out their phone or camera to take a picture
people walk with their camera app open, looking for photo-opportunities
people don't take time to look at anything, only through their camera even when they're with other people
people don't notice other people around them when on their phone
which causes them to move very slowly and bump into other people
people follow each other to take the same photo's
people take photos of everything, even boring/normal things
once the picture is taken, the moment is gone

Conclusion:

even when people are physically present in an area with interactive beings and social elements, they're not completely mentally focused on their surroundings (even though they're there as visitors).
they're more focused on their reality through their screen and on what they can share online.
they're alway busy with their online profile and not so much with their physical self.
people don't live in the moment or take time to actually look at where they are

At the library we noticed that:

almost all people have either a phone or laptop at their side at all time
most people do not have books with them
people are still busy with snapchat, instagram, facebook, etc.

Conclusions:

people go to the library to have a quiet space to focus on their work, but cannot be detached from their digital devices.
even when they're looking for a place to be alone, they still need to be a part of happening.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCES

One experience that we had outside of our visit to the Markthal is when people 'interact' with you online, but ignore you when you physically pass them. For example when they like your pictures on facebook and then don't say anything to you when you're in the same space or even pretend to not see you.

INTENTIONS

We want to make a critical piece about our findings.

We specifically 'like' the change of behaviour when people switch between online and physical interaction with other people.

We want to show that our phones don't add anything to our personal experience, but are only there for the people we want to connect to online and that it actually takes away from our own physical experience. There's a separation between physical and mental, our bodies are here (still interfering with other physical beings) but our minds are in our devices.

This ability to create a different world with our devices isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the way it's used is a bad thing to us, because we sacrifice our physical lives for what we want to be online.

In which world am I now?

VISUAL REFERENCES

MR BEAM

IMMERSIVE MOVIE EXPERIENCE

AUGMENTED REALITY DEMO

GOOGLE GLASSES

SPRITE BOTTLE HOLOGRAM

TESTS

First "prison" test

room instalation plan

Hologram test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMAu4tM1t5U

We want to make an installation that will show the switch between the real world and the digital world. We tried to imagine how to transcribe what happens when, surrounded by a crowd, you take your phone/device and switch to a different world.

Then, it appears that your physical presence is still there but your mind just disappeared in the digital sea. In order to get our intentions well and to have this feeling of someone switching from the real world to the digital one, we decided to blend different techniques as video mapping and holograms which are directly related to the paradox of real virtuality and connected with the physical world.

At first, we wanted to make a device with different iPhone animated applications on it and a video mapping crowd as a background. This first research pushed us to think about building a kind of a square prison to trap your own hologram inside. Then we finally decided to simplify the device, making a kind of a "monolithic device" based on the proportions of the iPhone. The device is the reflection of a smartphone and it will be presented, during the installation, as a smartphone on a store display.

The idea of the installation is to put this construction in a very dark space and project the video of a moving crowd on it. When the spectator comes in the room, he just sees this strange powerful construction with the video playing on and he or she will attempt to approach it.

At a certain point, a kinect system attached to device will switch the video for a mapping animation. At the same time, a second kinect which is connected to a computer, itself connected to an ipad will show a 3D realtime model (thanks to the kinect) of the spectator. The iPad is projecting on a transparent plexiglass sheet that will make an hologram-like version of the spectator, trapped in the device and which is also supposed to follow every movements made by the spectator.

As a material construction, we picked the decision to use white plexiglass because of its very clean white proprieties and also the fact that it has a very interesting reflection that went well with our reflective hologram idea and the looks of an iPhone. After making the first sketches on internet and determening the size of the device, we cut it out with the lasercutter machine. We also dug a square inside (just as a screen) to give some space for the hologram.

Material list :

- 2 kinects - 1 iPad - 2 computers - 1 beamer

device schema

first hologram test

hologram and videomapping tests

first hologram test with kinect

crowd mapping and hologram projection

BUILDING

To hide all our divices (kinect, compter, iPad...) and get it perfectly dark, we made a black box out of cardboard that we inserted in the "smartphone monolith".

Thanks to that, we were able to stabilize the iPad and the transparent plexiglass for the hologram projection. Then, we also realized that, the white plexiglass itself was not that effective in that because it was too flat. Then, we added some edges to give it more volume and to make the videomapping more interesting and 3D.

Plexiglass is not a very easy material to work with. We had to fold very carrefully each side to a piece of wood with a heatgun and stick it with chloroform glue.