I am pulled to ideas which include connecting people, or getting people to gather, or celebrating jjust the act of gathering and being together. This is a concept I was intrigued from the start of the course with the plush night light and something I’d like to tap into more for this project using the skills I have learned from my last.
- Some form of connectivity for eating
This is more inspired by my relationship, and how important eating together is for us. During busy schedules and when there are weeks where things don’t line up, we at least try to have an unplugged breakfast/lunch/dinner together.
I’ve seen those models of phone stands for two people to place their phones when eating, I am wondering if I could replicate that with a version which turns off the phones when placed. Another idea is that I’d like to make a pair of coasters with weight sensors and when one of them has a cup on it, the other one lights up the colour of the one with a cup and then when both of them has a cup on it then they animate before staying a more muted tone. The coaster idea is more long-distance based, and helps visually bring people together as well.
2. Living Sensor art work
I have no idea how this would actually work. I’ve always loved house gatherings and thinking about how many people have been in spaces and interiority. If there was some form of live capturing way to record handprints so that overtime you’d see all these “handprints,” I think that would be interesting. I am not sure how this would work and it could become a more conceptual piece. I am not that drawn to this idea, because it’s more representational and not exactly what I would like to achieve during the final project, but it was a starting point.
3. Words to go
This is inspired by the to-do printer and the fortune teller printer projects in the past. Being someone with high-functioning anxiety, and having recently gone through a tough hiccup, its been hard to do everyday “normal” things. I’m thinking for this idea, a weight sensor on the keys and every time its taken off, a small note gets printed. The note would tap into some form-based database or if I could connect text messages that would be cool too (like if I had a personal number that people could text like “text 1101 and message me a note”). I’d also implement a queue so that there could be multiple messages, and the led would maybe be a rainbow colour if there is an active queue to indicate their are messages, but it would be limited to one print per weight pulled off.
There are also variations of this idea. I don’t love being on my phone first thing in the morning because it stresses me out sometimes, but I also need to check for texts from my partner and my family who all live away from me. So maybe an unplugged messenger, where they can send me a message, it prints automatically, and I can press a button that lights up a heart for them to see that I read their message.
