YDSHINTO.
Brief
The intention of this this project is to gain a better understanding of combining theory and technical skills to solve problems and come up with solutions in given situations. Focusing on human interaction and culture, the goal is to design an interactive object or environment. Implementation of technology should be well-thought-through, while applying John Maeda's design principal of thoughtful reduction - based off his book on The Law of Simplicity. The project is separated into two phases: the first phase focuses on developing a theme along with three proposals; the following phase is to create a technical documentation of one of the selected proposals and develop a physical prototype.
Process
Our process begins with researching and understanding the content of John Maeda's design principles on the Law of Simplicity and create information models that represent these fundamentals visually. We also introduced the topic of subcultures and combined the two together to explore an interesting space that we could get into. By synthesizing these two ideas we came across a project called Drum Suit by Andy Camera - a wearable suit that produces music by tapping on to different parts of the body. Using Andy Camera's as a precedent, we integrated his design process and put it into our own practice.
Our concept integrates the idea of simplifying musical instruments, while creating a playful experience among a group of users. By encouraging interaction towards an audience of music enthusiasts, our goal was to stimulate a social environment, which incorporates John Maeda's process of shrink, hide, and embody. How this works: Each chair has a particular type of musical instrument. Once a user sits down the musical instrument starts to play. As the user decides to mingle with others, all the musical instrument syncs up to create a small band based on their choice of jazz, indie, electro, latin, rock, folk, and miscellaneous genres. This interaction between users can help create an environment that best suits their mood and the atmosphere they want to be in.
The prototype was made with an Arduino and sending wireless information towards each other. The signals and information was then processed into MaxMSP to play back the sound clips, which the audience was creating.
Client
SFU SIAT
Category
Interaction Design
Prototyping
Product Design
Role
Project Lead
Programmer
Prototype Developer
Tools
Illustrator
Photoshop
Physical Prototyping
Arduino
Collaborators
Derek Pante
Kiks Chua
Winnie Chan
