Input <?> Output
With the final weeks of my MA studies quickly coming to a close, I have spent much time reflecting on which direction to push my practice and use this opportunity to experiment in a meaningful way. I had considered earlier on contextualising my generative work through a particular situated issue, for example returning to the subject of mental health or looking at a new context such as the migrant crisis situation in Malta and the Mediterranean. These might seem like somewhat random topics to engage with, however they are all relevant to me personally in some capacity and I have links with individuals in both areas which could be useful means of collaborating and bringing out some new insights. In the end however I decided against both of these as the timeline available for the project just does not allow me to conduct in-depth research into these areas and then produce something that will add any substantial or meaningful response. I am still interested in these topics and plan to pursue such projects within my practice beyond the MA (discussions on the migrant crisis are already underway). With that settled and with the encouragement of my tutorial group to maintain an emphasis on real-time generative work, I have opted to put together an interactive project that again looks at engagement with technology in a more physical sense.
A slide from the tutorial presentation deck giving an overview of the project.
This last project will take the form of a physical installation - a series of digital graphic visual interfaces (one text-based, one pattern, and one drawing tool) that invite the user to create a piece or art or communication using very limited and unorthodox ways of inputting or modulating information. Once completed, the resulting ‘work’ can be printed in situ for the user to keep or display within the space itself (or such is my intention at this time).
Sketches of how one of the interfaces could be structured
The concept behind the work is inspired by three primary pieces of writing, the first of which is David Reinfurt’s A * New * Program for Graphic Design, in which he states:
There are incremental advances in interface design perpetually put forward, like a better button design or a smoother loading widget, but these are driven more by a previous product than a comprehensive reimagination. The incremental designs respond to an existing interaction, rather than asking the more fundamental question of what the interaction could be. An interface can be radically reconceived, even just its visual vocabulary can suggest a completely different use.
Writing within the context of speculative interface designs proposed by AT&T during the 1990’s, his reflections centre around how designing in the absence of a set model opens up the possibility of conceiving new ways in which people might interact with a piece of technology, whereas the presence of a pre-existing system for engagement conditions the user to interact in specific ways. Building on this principle, I would argue that predefined formal (eco)systems of technology and interface design have conditioned us to not only interact in specific ways, but think and approach problems and tasks within a set model. Constraints, variables, and means of engagement have evolved over decades of iteration to become what they are, with generally understood semantics and semiotics, which is very powerful in terms of creating a consensus of understanding around how to engage with technology, however it comes at the detriment of then not enquiring what other methods could be investigated unless a particular use-case arises. In this vein of speculative design we might ask what kind of new insights or information could be garnered from new and distinct ways of interface and interaction that follow the path less travelled?
The second reference comes from Bill Gaver’s Hyperbole and Restraint as Tactics for Design:
Underlying all these examples of our practice is the view that design can (and perhaps should) avoid providing answers or solutions, and instead create situations that encourage people to find their own orientations to the artefacts we make and the issues they raise.
Gaver’s work in producing speculative and, by his own admission, rather inefficient and unsuccessful pieces of technology such as the Indoor Weather Stations and the Energy Babble, was highly influential in the conception of this project. He posits that the value of engagement with these devices is not in their output function in the classical sense (they are not very good at what they are ‘made’ to do for a variety of reasons), but rather in their provocation of the user to interact with them, reflect on their function and the context in which they function, and gain new thoughts, insights, discussions and understandings. Thus they become physical research devices where the actual output stems from human interaction and discussion.
Left One of Gaver’s Indoor Weather Stations
Center The Energy Babble
Right The Phone-You-Can’t-Pickup by Sarah Pennington: What would it be like to live with a phone that can ring when people call, but which can’t be used to answer? By imposing such a constraint, the result is to turn an ordinary phone into something not exactly useless, but useful in an extraordinary way – to tantalise oneself with the possibility of a connection denied, perhaps. (From Hyperbole and Restraint).
The third reference lies with Andrew Blauvelt’s Ghost in the Machine: Distributing Subjectivity - a response to the Conditional Design Manifesto:
Contemporary designers make tools that enable others to use design, they create systems to engage the intrinsic complexity of technology and life, and they create platforms that harness the creativity of many people’s ideas. If Gerstner’s directive in the 1960s was for designers to create programs that could help solve problems in systematic ways, today’s analogous imperative is to design designing: to open the closed system of design, which is no longer just about the controlled production of discrete objects but involves itself in larger questions such as who designs, what kinds of tools will be available to create with, and what kinds of systems will be available to share and distribute this production.
This quote touches on several key points - the use of open systems (in which content is generated by outside users and returned back to the outside world), designing systems within the context of design itself, the kinds of tools and technology this design is carried out with and how it can be distributed. Much of my previous work has looked at systemised and procedural ways of designing within the context of computation, whereas this leads to the next phase of enquiry - designing user systems rather than discrete objects, what those systems should look like, and how broader networks play into this exchange.
Returning once again to this last project, my line of enquiry is to rethink what a design interface could be, how its form influences the way in which users approach the problem, and provoking them to deeper thought and reflection about how technology influences their thinking and interactions. Like Gaver’s prototypes, the physical graphic outputs generated by users are intended to be aesthetically pleasing and provide some sense of novelty (you should get something for your efforts after all), but the real product is the change in perspective that this interaction may or may not provide.
Speech to text design prototype 01
Currently I am still sorting through different ways of manifesting this installation - which coding platforms to use, formulating the interfaces themselves, as well as reckoning with the various types of inputs that can potentially be used - arduino-enabled controls, speech to text and motion control in particular. I am also considering the use of inter-textuality - adapting an input we are accustomed to using for a different purpose, such as a gaming controller, to the purposes of designing - and what this could also bring to the table. There is also the consideration of what constraints and variables are to be afforded and how these are mapped. This is rather a big risk for the production of what amounts to be one iteration of the concept, but it is also a meaningful one.
