Reflection

Today was the presentation of our final project and it went rather well. In the end we had to make some compromises on our final output that limited the range of detail that the haiku could capture, but all in all iKu575 functioned well enough to get our main concepts across.

Matt asked us what we learned from the making process that we wouldn’t have gotten from merely the design. At first I didn’t really know what to say. But now that we’ve had some time to reflect, I think there is one point that is crystal clear: any system or object that you design will impose some sort of structure or limitations onto the ideal form. These outside standards or infrastructures are always, in some way, shaping the final form or output of a device. In our case that was made crystal clear, both by our inability to fully grasp (in the relatively short time frame) coding possibilities, and the limitations of code itself. The interaction between language as we use it and coding language was a very difficult relationship to manage. As well things such as power sources and ethernet cables tied our device to a physical location. While in the design stage, these were elements that could be overlooked and imagined in the ideal form, but when the physcial making process begins, there are many choices and challenges that must be dealt with that ultimately affect the final product. This process of making has highlighted to relationship between the ideal creation and the realities one must deal with.

Form

The final form has been decided upon and ultimately finished. We opted for a leather jacket, both for it’s versitility in physcially creating the piece, and the versitility of the image it portrays. We wanted to create wearable technology that didn’t advertise its

External Sensors - Can you find them?

technological abilities. As such, the technical components, both the sensors and the physcial wires have been place in inconspicuous places, that upon first glance would be hardly noticable. It is an effort to pursue “ubiquitous computing” desires to seemlessly integrate technology and activity (Bell & Dourish, 2006; Weiser, 1991). Rather than continue to envision ubicomp as in a proximate future, it is possible to acknowledge that comptuing technology has begun to reach a level in which it permeates, or has the possibility to, almost every aspect of our lives, and our project is a direct reflection of that belief.

Given the limits of our technology and skills, this goal of seemless and invisible technology is not possible, as our final form still relies on wired power and internet connectivity. Our ideal form would, of course, have its own powersource and utilize a wireless internet connection.

iKu575

Related Readings

Beer, D. (2009). Power through the algorithm? Participatory web cultures and the technological unconscious. New Media & Society 11(6), 985-1002.

This article explores Web 2.0 and the influx of mundane personal information into the web and available to organizations. He argues that the information used by software algorithms can shape cultural and auditory experiences. Through  the use of algorithms, information provided to the user is mediated by already gathered information about user preferences. For example advertisments within one’s email application may be tailored to the users specific interests, as interpreted from information gathered. Beers argues that Web 2.0 provides an opening up of vast amounts of mundane information and questions how this information will be gathered and used to shape the environment of the user.

This reading provides a foundation to explore our device, but in a different manner. Our device rather than illustrating how information can shape experience, it uses our cultural and environmental experience to generate information to alter ones online presence.