Testing out xBee radios for the alienation concept.

I’m following the code and directions from Tom Igoe‘s most recent book Making Things Talk. It’s great. Here’s a link to Amazon, and here‘s a link to the errata page that contains corrections and code for use with the examples in the book.

After the break is the code for duplex xBee communication.
(more…)

I went out the other day and bought a poplar board in order to make a kind of platter to present the mechanical prototype of the silicone prosthesis. The swatch was hooked up to servo motors, so I could control the motion and present it in class. I intend to make a couple of what I’ve been thinking about as “finished prototype sketches” that I can use to figure out and present how I want to proceed with this project.

My next step here is to really consider and plan how I am going to make a body cast for the full scale silicone mold moving up to the larger scale molding and casting. For the next couple of days, however, I’ll be working on the electronics that will power my concept for the alienation prosthesis.

1. title slide
• just the bog-standard title information
• emotional prostheses for bodily expression
2. rationale
• In a world deeply mediated through and by technology, it becomes unclear whether existentialist anxiety and alienation are due to innate tendencies within the human psyche or from sociotechnical factors without. It could be argued that modern humans are already cyborgs, existing as a co-construction of the self and the technological, albeit in dimensions that have little to do with emotional content. Developing technology for a person as a holistic being is lagging behind commercial ventures. Should we begin to explore what it means to develop personal bodily technologies to contain our negative emotions, making wearable objects that become part of ourselves? That are necessary to feel like ourselves?
• This is the boilerplate from the beginning of the semester. Obviously, it needs to be reconsidered/paraphrased with respect to the work I’ve done so far this semester… refer to thesis document WIP
3. introduction to emotional prostheses
• what I mean by ‘prosthetic’
• wearable technology vs. bodily technology
• discussion of material choices
• reflective design vs. product design
4. social anxiety prosthesis
• silicone as flesh analog
• naturalistic display based on stylized reaction
• mechanical action, exposed mechanism
• thoughts on proceeding, current options for construction
5. alienation prosthesis
• distributed body –> distributed selves
• formal considerations, lighting near or far, etc.
6. insecurity prosthetic sketch
• possibly sketches/concepts for a third prosthetic
7. future work
• where I want to go from here

I put together a quick sketch of how some of the mechanics will work out for the hackles on the social anxiety object. Obviously, the silicone will be heavier, and longer strings of them will be weightier, but generally, this was pretty successful. The pulleys worked well in this case, although the lack of weight and irregularity of the pulleys led to the monofilament going off track. This will need extremely precise fine tuning in the silicone prototype.

At the Royal College of Art, Susanna Hertrich is currently working on a project as a part her thesis called the alertness enhancement device. It’s really nice to see other people that are thinking of stuff in this space in similar ways that I am.

Here‘s the link (via we make money, not art)

The risks we fear the most are often the ones most unlikely to be encountered. The human animal has lost its natural instinct for the real dangers. When worn directly on your skin, the Alertness Enhancing Device will act as a physical prosthesis for a lost natural instinct of the real fears and dangers that threaten us – as opposed to perceived risks that often cause a public outrage.

The idea is it stimulates goosebumps and shivers that go down your spine and make your neck hair stand up, waking up the alert animal inside. You become more alert and ready for the real dangers in life.

Earlier, I posted a pretty optimistic timeline for making three devices as emotional prostheses. Maybe I was unrealistic. Surely, it’s taking me longer than I expected to make the anxiety device, even as I begin planning and thinking about an alienation device. Here are some modifications to the original plan, focusing on producing at least one finished object and developing solid prototypes and sketches for future work. Bold list items are new.

I realized also I haven’t mentioned writing the paper anywhere in my timeline. I think that after week 5, I have given working on materiality enough of a go on its own that I should start to think about how to frame my thoughts more solidly. I’ll be thinking about what I’m working on, and hopefully write a paragraph or two about it daily for a while, to see what kind of threads emerge that I can use towards an argument in the document.

WEEK 3

• silicone materials tests done
• begin mold making for larger scale casting
• make mold for casting hackles

WEEK 4

• refine casts
• think about hackle execution
• finalize the object

WEEK 5

• finish the social anxiety object (hopefully name it)
• keep working on anxiety device, particularly mechanics prototype in cardboard and molding processes
• ideally have another idea for a prosthetic, begin to think about how alienation should be represented

WEEKS 6 to 9

• finish anxiety prototype
• make body mold for anxiety object, do a large-scale casting, revise, finish
• build device/object number 2
• prototype electronics for alienation device, build object
• ideate device/object number 3
• reflect on social anxiety object