So after a day or two of getting sucked into (or perhaps bogged down?) by research and my conceptual ideas, I think I have my ideas more or less figured out. I had my conceptual ideas first but then had come trouble translating it over into some way to visually represent it but finally had my 'ta-da', lightbulb inspiration moment on the bus home one day. Ultimately, upon presentation I will want my ideas to speak for themselves but for documentation purposes (and also because writing it all out helped me get my ideas properly formulated before I begin construction of my prosthetic.
The concept:
To explore and understand the relationship between the physical and the digital, human and technology, I have looked at the relationship between human to human and human to computer.
Taking the purpose of the prosthetic is to serve as an addition, replacement, an extension, an augmentation or an enhancement we can in fact say that computers perform all these functions thus become a prosthetic to the humans. I think that the regardless how integrated these prosthetics become in our lives, they remain only prosthetics as we are defined as humans by the capability to have and register emotions and function according to them. This is an idea I thought about when we first started working with the NXTs.
We do however form emotional, sentimental bonds with technology which then lead to the assignment of human characteristics to these technologies as they become part of our everyday lives. I for example have named my laptop Mrkusich after one of my favourite artists, hence transferring some of the sentimental value from the name, and I always respond the the noise it makes on start up as if it were saying 'good morning'. These emotional bonds are not limited to any one piece of technology but rather the existence of technology as a whole as they enhance aspects of our lives. For example, I have also named my mp3 player (Masaccio), camera (Leonardo) and even my USB flash drive. All after artists of course.
So with this connection, we become more comfortable using it as an outlet to express emotions. As the nature of communication changes with introduction of more technology, our human to computer relationship begins to act as a barrier to our human to human relationships. The nature of human communication lies strongly rooted in body language as a means of visual communication understandable between humans with most of what we communicate subconsciously conveyed through gesture, posture and expression. As humans, we naturally react and respond accordingly based on what emotions are conveyed, but when we aren't in the physical presence of someone, we find other means of visually expressing ourselves to communicate effectively. As we choose more to communicate through digital means, we have developed the use of colour, images, fonts and writing style such as 'net speak' and emoticons to get the right tone of what we are trying to say.
This sort of communication is open to biased as we only convey about ourselves what we chose, where as with physical communication (body language) often it is a lot more subconscious. Many take advantage of this and seek to therefore use the prosthetics of technology not merely extensions of the physical existence but rather as escapism from it with the promises of cyberspace and virtual realities. The technology knows not about your thoughts or emotions and operates on a more simpler input / output method, you can determine what you want to put in and that's what the computer will know. On the other hand, that's not to say that technology is completely oblivious to our emotions.
Essentially, emotions trigger feeling in the body - tingles, hot spots, muscular tensions - which cause us to respond physically and often unconsciously which give the indicators of said emotions (hence, body language). We can program technology to some degree to understand emotions based on inputs triggered by human emotions, for example, heart rate and temperature. Regardless, even though they can make sense of this input to perhaps trigger a corresponding output if it has been preprogrammed as such, they do not yet have the ability to possess the same emotions or empathise. Among humans, we pick up on each others emotions in a way which then can affect our own, known as social contagion.
So, I therefore want my prosthetic to be a bridge between physical and virtual communication. It represents a very real and integral part of any human, that which we read a lot from in any physical interaction, that is, the face. Without the face, as with online communication, we lack a vital key to understanding. I am using the face as it it something we naturally look to for meaning and often we feel uneasy when unable to see a face in communication. This is enhanced also by leaving it rough and white, evoking this same uneasiness and neutrality of meaning, as well as the idea of emotion as universal among humans, the face distinctive too of humans, real and physical. The computer can be programmed to understand the physicality of body language through touch and what emotion it correlates to which it will then present in a visual stream of images and words which others have used to express those emotions online.
Hence, lets say I am communicating online with who is not in the same physical presence as me. They cannot read my body language and facial expressions which we are naturally attuned to do. My prosthesis however is in the same physical space as me so can trigger a response from my gestures. The prosthetic and the computer can only produce a predetermined response in a visual representation I have select. It cannot make its own judgement as it lacks the ability to feel these emotions itself. However, the visual representation triggers an emotional response with the person with which I am communicating. The prosthetic has serves an extension of my emotion, replacement for my physical presence, an enhancement to my message and the understanding of the recipient.
So what?
In a recent article in Time (April 6, 2009) there was an article on learning to be an optimist - A Primer for Pessimists by Alice Park. It mentioned that we are social beings influenced to no small degree by our friends and family. Dr. Nicholas Christakis undertook a study on the effect of social contagion by looking at Facebook. He noted that people who were smiling in their profile pictures were more likely to have friends who smiled. As social networking becomes increasingly popular, another bit of technology integrated into our lives (surely I'm not the only one who checks my Facebook what may be perhaps at an unhealthy frequency?), it can perhaps utilise the nature of social contagion. As with the example, if we chose to present a positive image of ourselves, then we will attract or influence the presence of positive people around us. So I felt this linked nicely to my own example where the technology as a prosthesis was utilised as a means to the end, as opposed to an end in itself, helping to break the communication barrier as opposed to being the barrier.
The concept:
To explore and understand the relationship between the physical and the digital, human and technology, I have looked at the relationship between human to human and human to computer.
Taking the purpose of the prosthetic is to serve as an addition, replacement, an extension, an augmentation or an enhancement we can in fact say that computers perform all these functions thus become a prosthetic to the humans. I think that the regardless how integrated these prosthetics become in our lives, they remain only prosthetics as we are defined as humans by the capability to have and register emotions and function according to them. This is an idea I thought about when we first started working with the NXTs.
We do however form emotional, sentimental bonds with technology which then lead to the assignment of human characteristics to these technologies as they become part of our everyday lives. I for example have named my laptop Mrkusich after one of my favourite artists, hence transferring some of the sentimental value from the name, and I always respond the the noise it makes on start up as if it were saying 'good morning'. These emotional bonds are not limited to any one piece of technology but rather the existence of technology as a whole as they enhance aspects of our lives. For example, I have also named my mp3 player (Masaccio), camera (Leonardo) and even my USB flash drive. All after artists of course.
So with this connection, we become more comfortable using it as an outlet to express emotions. As the nature of communication changes with introduction of more technology, our human to computer relationship begins to act as a barrier to our human to human relationships. The nature of human communication lies strongly rooted in body language as a means of visual communication understandable between humans with most of what we communicate subconsciously conveyed through gesture, posture and expression. As humans, we naturally react and respond accordingly based on what emotions are conveyed, but when we aren't in the physical presence of someone, we find other means of visually expressing ourselves to communicate effectively. As we choose more to communicate through digital means, we have developed the use of colour, images, fonts and writing style such as 'net speak' and emoticons to get the right tone of what we are trying to say.
This sort of communication is open to biased as we only convey about ourselves what we chose, where as with physical communication (body language) often it is a lot more subconscious. Many take advantage of this and seek to therefore use the prosthetics of technology not merely extensions of the physical existence but rather as escapism from it with the promises of cyberspace and virtual realities. The technology knows not about your thoughts or emotions and operates on a more simpler input / output method, you can determine what you want to put in and that's what the computer will know. On the other hand, that's not to say that technology is completely oblivious to our emotions.
Essentially, emotions trigger feeling in the body - tingles, hot spots, muscular tensions - which cause us to respond physically and often unconsciously which give the indicators of said emotions (hence, body language). We can program technology to some degree to understand emotions based on inputs triggered by human emotions, for example, heart rate and temperature. Regardless, even though they can make sense of this input to perhaps trigger a corresponding output if it has been preprogrammed as such, they do not yet have the ability to possess the same emotions or empathise. Among humans, we pick up on each others emotions in a way which then can affect our own, known as social contagion.
So, I therefore want my prosthetic to be a bridge between physical and virtual communication. It represents a very real and integral part of any human, that which we read a lot from in any physical interaction, that is, the face. Without the face, as with online communication, we lack a vital key to understanding. I am using the face as it it something we naturally look to for meaning and often we feel uneasy when unable to see a face in communication. This is enhanced also by leaving it rough and white, evoking this same uneasiness and neutrality of meaning, as well as the idea of emotion as universal among humans, the face distinctive too of humans, real and physical. The computer can be programmed to understand the physicality of body language through touch and what emotion it correlates to which it will then present in a visual stream of images and words which others have used to express those emotions online.
Hence, lets say I am communicating online with who is not in the same physical presence as me. They cannot read my body language and facial expressions which we are naturally attuned to do. My prosthesis however is in the same physical space as me so can trigger a response from my gestures. The prosthetic and the computer can only produce a predetermined response in a visual representation I have select. It cannot make its own judgement as it lacks the ability to feel these emotions itself. However, the visual representation triggers an emotional response with the person with which I am communicating. The prosthetic has serves an extension of my emotion, replacement for my physical presence, an enhancement to my message and the understanding of the recipient.
So what?
In a recent article in Time (April 6, 2009) there was an article on learning to be an optimist - A Primer for Pessimists by Alice Park. It mentioned that we are social beings influenced to no small degree by our friends and family. Dr. Nicholas Christakis undertook a study on the effect of social contagion by looking at Facebook. He noted that people who were smiling in their profile pictures were more likely to have friends who smiled. As social networking becomes increasingly popular, another bit of technology integrated into our lives (surely I'm not the only one who checks my Facebook what may be perhaps at an unhealthy frequency?), it can perhaps utilise the nature of social contagion. As with the example, if we chose to present a positive image of ourselves, then we will attract or influence the presence of positive people around us. So I felt this linked nicely to my own example where the technology as a prosthesis was utilised as a means to the end, as opposed to an end in itself, helping to break the communication barrier as opposed to being the barrier.
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