Restless Freetime: The Second Nature of Objects
Restless Freetime presents the downtime of electronic objects as an area of investigation for Interaction Design. This speculative project seeks to expose, exaggerate and shift the master-servant relationship we have with our objects, with a view to enrich our daily experiences with the synthetic/technology-sasturated environment.
Keep in mind that I need to make the distinction between mine and “Toy Stories”
-> I can’t have people out of the picture. It can’t be a “when people are gone” situation, it has to be “when people are not using it”
OK - 1. idle time can be an opportunity for interaction design
OK - 2. we can gear idle time towards meaning experiences in order to change the relationship with our objects
WHY? 3. …because of the way we treat objects? because we only see them as tools?
What if a robot had a personal life, a hobby, or a routine that people can’t understand?
Paper Cutter Ver. 2 is an in-context version of “Paper Cutter,” an experiment I did as part of the “Personal Life of an Electronic Object” series.
The original experiment, “Paper Cutter,” was supposed to illustrate just the hobby part of a familiar electronic object. What could they do when we’re not around? In the case of this vacuum cleaner, it is obsessively cutting paper. To the best of its ability.
The project adresses a couple of key points.
- The concept of a “personified” and “autonomous” electronic object: This machine looks like it is “alive” or “trying to act like it is alive”. The idea of “consciousness,” seen through its willful act of cutting, and “awareness,” felt through it recognizing the presence and absence of a person enables us to perceive the object as “alive.” It may not have actual consciousness but it does in the mind of the viewer as much as a pair of shoes might seem like a “couple that is born to be together.”
- The concept of “work” vs “play”: When a person is “working,” he is being productive, or doing a job for a purposeful outcome; on the other hand, when he is “playing,” he is generally doing an activity that is not necessarily productive, but more meaningful in a personal way. This vacuum cleaner, too, has a productive “working” routine which is done when a person uses it for cleaning. Once the owner is done with the vacuum cleaner, it will have a significant amount of “down-time,” which in terms of the lives of people, would be considered as “time to rest” or “play”.
- The concept of “imperfection” of a seemingly alive being: The video illustrates a vacuum cleaner that is cutting paper to the best of its ability; it has a couple of “flaws.” It is not “smart” enough to fix it when the paper goes off track. It can not fix itself when the paper rips or the blade falls out. It can not go out and buy more paper to fulfill its needs. It has to be treated like a pet of a person. It has to be fixed, cleaned, and taken care of by its owner. This is similar to having to charge a cellphone, give water to plants, and wash a pet. Does this vacuum cleaner seem more “humane” for its flaws and obsessive personality?
In my attempt to dig deeper and figure out what’s working and what’s not so far, I took my “Personal Life of an Electronic Object” experimental series and turned it into a book.
The first section is a memoir of my thesis journey so far, written from the idea of seeing myself as an imperfect piece of electronic. It was printed on 12”x9” pulp paper.
The second section is the part that was printed on tabloid extra newsprint. It contains three short stories written about the “Personal Life of an Electronic Object” machines from the perspective of the machines. Each story is accompanied with corresponding photographs illustrating their form and environment.
The last section contains a quote from Kevin Kelly’s “7th Kingdom of Life”, which is put to tie in the former two chapters.
I’ve kept any wrinkles and discoloration, both which I am able to call “imperfections” because it for one, lets every book be unique, and two, fits into the theme, “perfectly”.
This project gave me a great chance to reflect on my whole term and objectively and subjectively analyze what I’ve earned from it. This may not have been the most productive exercise that would directly push myself to the next level but it was definitely a nice opportunity to meditate and clean up my thoughts.
On a different note, writing the short stories really did give me a more productive outcome. I thought more about the idea of “play” and “labor”. It seems like the idea of “labor” is what we perceive in electronic objects today—as utilitarian tools. TOOLS. On the other hand, the very idea that a machine to “play” during its “down-time”—which I am defining as the time it is not in use” presents a different thought. A machine will never have consciousness the way a human being would. I am borrowing humanly “play” to suggest that a machine is having fun, for it is only the human who can consciously state that a machine is having fun. At the end, it is us who will look at a machine and say if it is “having fun” or “working hard”. Other humanly traits I borrowed were ideas of having a pet, being placed in a competitive situation, having an unexplainable obsession or hobby, and relying on others—showing social traits.
Learning from this project, I have decided to write blog entries on what a machine may think, perceive and feel, though they may not be short stories.
After talking to a couple of advisors in week 12, it became crucial that I started mapping out my journey, identifying strong themes and roads. It seems like I have 3 roads that stand out.
One, the formal exploration ending up at the vacuum-formed electronics.
Two, the attentive nature of an electronic as a functional maid/servant.
Three, the personal life of an electronic object which shows expressive qualities.
The goal: To marry the functional and expressive or emotional aspects of electronics.
Personally, I’m the most interested in the “personal life of an electronic object” at the moment. Elements like “down-time” of an electronic object, “needing people to finish a task,” and electronics having a “relationship with creatures other than humans” are some sub-topics that particularly stays in my head. My only concern is that I may be going down a slippery slope down “mere personification of an electronic object.”
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After the Thesis Advising Committee Review #2
Some of the advises I got from the committee was to really drill down one area of interest that is popping out. Without the luxury of having three terms to spend on my thesis, I do agree that this is definitely something I should be doing, no questions asked.
Some interesting topics from today’s discussion includes the relationship or position of the user, and possibly the idea of privacy, leading onto the idea of “feedforwarding,” a concept that explains what we can know from different signals of an object. I have been doing experiments where the user is a viewer other than when the object is completely functional. It’d be interesting to see the different directions I can go to by giving different stances to the user in respect to the object.
The idea of labor and play is something that has been popping up a lot during the comments on “Stringer” and “Paper Cutter.” The language and behavior of objects quickly became a topic that we were talking about. The spirit of a behaviors such as following, watching, attending, participating and etc can definitely be used as a metaphor that fuels my future explorations. I liked the suggestion of using metaphors as a strategic language and going back and forth between different stories, elements, and functions caught in the process. Funny. I am having flashbacks from that time I heard “add values, not functions.”
So what if electronics had a life of its own? What if we were not the only ones who interacted with them? If electronics had a symbiotic relationship with other things in this world, maybe we won’t me as critical about their “imperfections.”
What if we could grow electronics off trees?
They would all be different shapes, sizes, colors, textures, balanced, off-balance, too big, too small, and even just right……would we appreciate their “defects”?
