Experiment on a Seesaw as the Direct Communication Initiator

ABSTRACT
This experiment is to explore the potential of the seesaw as a direct communication initiator in the urban public space. First, the plain seesaw in various public settings was observed. The first observation shows that playing seesaw can initiate the conversation between people who already know each other, but initiating the strangers to play the seesaw together is very difficult except for the special occasion. However, once strangers play the seesaw, they converse and introduce themselves. Second observation was done with the seesaw with auditory responsive system that works as the attractor and the reward system. This has increased the frequency and the duration of people’s playing the seesaw. The second observation also shows that the responsive system pulls more participation of the pedestrian but at the same time makes them more cautious about their behavior. The experiment needs to go further, suggesting that more tempting and satisfying reward needs to be expected from initial touching of the seesaw in order to make it possible for the strangers to act together and in order to make the conversation on the seesaw more sustainable.



BACKGROUND
I speculated that a cooperative character of seesaw and the close proximity occurred when sitting on a seesaw would increase the local communication in the urban setting where the communication and relationship is not proportional to the physical proximity[1]. The initial design was the seesaw that charges the mobile phone while initiating the conversation between the people. The mobile phone charger functions as the attractor and the reward of overcoming the shyness and taking the risk of being with stranger.

I wanted to observe and verify the actual sociable potentiality of a seesaw in a public space. However, the seesaw as a electricity generator is hard to be used as the attractor of the public because of the lack of prior understanding of the unusual function. In order to study the inviting and rewarding factor from the observation, I planned to experiment with the plain seesaw to observe the potentiality of the direct communication it can initiate and to go through the iterative observation process. The observation was done twice in the various public settings.


FIELD OBSERVATION 1
I produced the full-scale seesaw to observe how it will initiate the direct communication between people in the public place.

Seesaw production

The seesaw is made of softwood lumbers and a steel rode. The scale is designed for adults. When balanced, the height is 21 inches. The length, which is 50 inches, is designed as being shorter than conventional seesaw in order to invite and ease the conversation between the sitters.

Observation
The seesaw was placed in several types of public space which varies in population and sociableness. The tested places consisted of beer and dog event at GSD, a crossroad, the front of science canter, the harvard yard, Au Bon Pain at harvard square and harvard square T station. The observation last about 20 minutes at each places, except the harvard yard where one family happened to enjoy the seesaw for a long time.


(1) Initial observation was done at beer and dog, which is a weekly sociable event at GSD. Followings could be observed there.
- Adults played the seesaw and started conversation between strangers.
- Some adults expressed their nostalgic feeling to the seesaw.
- Some adults played the seesaw in their own way, i.e. sitting facing towards the opposite direction.
**Special conditions
- Most of the people were slightly drunken adults.
- The strangers were likely to be assumed as being affiliated with the school.

(2) Crossroad
- Some adults touched the seesaw.
- The seesaw drew some attention.

(3) The front of science center is comparatively less touristic public place where students and families enjoy walking in the sun.
- A couple of adults played seesaw.
- Several families played seesaw and seemed to enjoy the unexpected experience.
- Several adults touched the seesaw and changed the balance when passing by it.
- Some adults expressed their nostalgic feeling to the seesaw.

(4) Yard in front of John Harvard statue is both a passage for the students and a touristic spot.
- Many adults touched the seesaw to move the balance but did not actually play it.
- Two groups of adults played the seesaw and ended up with taking photographs.
- Several families played seesaw.
- One father and his young son played the seesaw for about 20 minutes constantly talking to each other.

(5) Au Bon Pain at harvard square is a meeting place with the large floating population.
- Some adults touched the seesaw.
- The seesaw drew some attention.

(6) The front of Harvard square T station is a crowded place for transportation rather than a touristic spot.
- No one touched the seesaw.
- The seesaw hardly got attention.

Results
The seesaw in the public place easily gets attention except at the place for transportation where the population is in motion with a goal of arriving somewhere else. Especially the children easily get interested in the seesaw and play it. Adults tend to get interested in the seesaw and often touch it but do not often play it. Adults in sociable context converse with stranger on seesaw. Adults in normal situation do not play the seesaw or converse with stranger. Adults who already know each other play the seesaw and converse. An adult and a child converse each other. Children do not converse on a seesaw whether they already know each other or not.

Initial findings
The seesaw itself draws the attention and invites people to touch it in the public space. The seesaw seems to be perceived as an emotional object for adults. while it seems to be an exciting toy for children.

Playing the seesaw sometimes forms intimate and isolated environment of the two sitters regardless of the actual context of the place.

It is hard to make perfect strangers to play seesaw together unless they are in the context of sociable event or the players are children under their parents care. But once they start playing, the seesaw make the adults start conversation and end up with introduce themselves to each other. The children don’t converse with each other when playing a seesaw.

Playing seesaw is about conversation when one or more sitters are adults. The motivation for adults to continue moving the seesaw after initial touching is needed for playing the seesaw longer and initiating the conversation.


FIELD OBSERVATION 2
I added the sensor and actuator to the seesaw to produce the sensory feedback to touching reaction by pedestrians and increase the curiosity. The purpose is to observe whether it increases the people and time of playing the seesaw in a public place.

System design



The seesaw itself draws visual attention and invite people in the public space. In order to increase the actual interaction, such as touching the seesaw, of the pedestrians, the seesaw is producing the weak sound which can be heard by the people in the close proximity. The added auditory cue amplifies the curiosity about the unusual seesaw.

Upon touching the seesaw, the tilt change of the seesaw triggers the louder sound to provide the clue that there is the rewarding from playing the seesaw. Constantly playing seesaw keeps the sound louder. My original plan includes that starting conversation triggers the sound effect which results in more cheerful and ambient sound which would not disturb the conversation and would help increasing the positive affection, which could not be realized before the second field observation.

The first iteration consists of an accelerometer and a piezo speaker wired with the arduino microcontroller, which makes the stand-alone interactive system. The piezon speaker produces a diatonic scale proportional to the tilt of the seesaw board. However, the speaker does not produce the favorable sound.

The second iteration consists of Max/MSP software and Wii controller. The sound output is from the built-in speaker of the MacBook. The reason of using Wii controller is that I could not get the bluetooth wireless component that can be used for connecting the Max/MSP installed MacBook with the arduino. By using this system, several types of sound were tested and the soft trembling sound was selected among the simple midi sound, the piano sound of playing chromatic scale and the ambient music.

Observation
The site of observation includes GSD cafeteria and the harvard yard. The observation last about 20 minutes at each places.



(1) GSD cafeteria has a floating population of design students.
- Some adults attended the seesaw.
- Two people played the seesaw.
- One person commented the sound attracted his attention very much.

(2) Yard in front of John Harvard statue is both a passage for the students and a touristic spot.
- The seesaw attracted more people with the initial sound, while some people commented not to notice the sound at all.
- The increase of sound intensity attracted adults to touch or play the seesaw longer than the one without the interactive system.
- One person commented short length seesaw made it harder to balance.
- One person commented that he attended the seesaw from a far distance because of its unusual context.
- One person looked for and revealed the control system.
- The seesaw tended to pull attention from the surroundings to the opposite sitter.
- The laptop near to the seesaw seemed to threaten the people from interacting with the seesaw.

Results
The initial sound and the increase of sound triggered by touching the seesaw invite more people to play the seesaw longer. The sound generally increases the curiosity. However, the sound and the visible system such as laptop computer also makes people to be more cautious and hesitate touching or playing with the seesaw. Some people did not notice the sound in the field.


CONCLUSION
The design of seesaw is intended for increasing the communication between people at a close distance. The seesaw in a public place invites the pedestrians to touch and play it because of its unusual context. Playing the seesaw sometimes forms intimate and isolated environment of the two sitters regardless of the actual context of the place. The responsive sound of the seesaw also increases the curiosity and the frequency of playing the seesaw. However, the seesaw, whether it is interactive or not, does not seem to trigger the communication between strangers except the case where the people are already in the sociable setting.

At the same time, the sound and the interactive system which is visible but can be suspicious increases the precaution of the people. The obvious act of documenting the situation does not seem to worry people as much as the laptop, similarly to the Performance Three of Souveillance project done by Mann, Nolan an Wellman[2]. It could be seen from people that the tension between the curiosity and the precaution about the interactive seesaw exists.

More familiar and sustainable interaction that would decrease the precaution and maintain the curiosity is needed for the improvement of the seesaw for increasing the local communication. More specific and tangible reward that does not require the additional explanation is also needed. In order for making the chance for the strangers to play the seesaw together and start conversation, it is worth thinking of the alternative type of reward which is very tempting and satisfying to the degree that may have people to want to sing or dance with strangers in a special occasion.


REFERENCES
[1] Milgram, S. (1970) The Experience of Living in Cities. Science, New Series, 167, 1461-1468.
[2] Mann, S., Nolan, J. and Wellman, B. (2003) Sousveillance: Inventing and Using Wearable Computing Devices for Data Collection in Surveillance Environments. Surveillance & Society 1(3), 331-355.

Four Questions

1. Can the public acceptance of being recorded as an act of souveillance/coveillance, which was experimented in Mann, Nolan & Wellman’s paper, be explained by the Marx’s criteria of normative expectations such as manner, honest and a fair play?

2. Can the concept of sousveillance challenge Elmer’s (dark)vision of A Diagram of Panoptic Surveillance where people consume “more of the same” and thus may become more homogeneous?

3. Is the sousveillance empowering the individual? Does surveilling the surveillance really neutralize the surveillance? Or will the sousveillance/coveillance in the highly networked environment be another form of more complex and powerful panoptic surveillance with too many banalized small towers(and the prisoners at the same time), which would eventually re-imprison all the individuals?

4. Does keeping privacy mean “not-existing” in the environment with easy surveillance and recognition systems? Will existence be defined by whether it is recognized or surveilled?

Proposal for the Final Project

Problem/Question
Some of the characters of urban life, such as the disconnection between proximity and friendship, is closely related to the concern about the negative effect such as potential danger. The fear of the potential danger again increases the indifference and ignorance about the neighbor and disconnects the proximity and friendship more. This fear can be diminished by getting rid of the dangerous factor and by acquainting the neighbor more. In order to diminish the fear, and to increase the friendship in the close proximity, more sociable and safe situation in the location-specific context is needed. This situation will help people to share the common experience and increase the amount of communication within the neighborhood, which bears the opportunity of forming the new relationships. My question is that what context could invite the people to the local and sociable situation and what reward the people would get from the attempt of communication, being free from or trading with the potential danger. I explored this question in two different levels of directness of the communication and the relationship.


#1: Atlas
The first approach leads the indirect communication in the semi-outside space like the courtyard that can hold up to large number of people.
*The great court roof covering the inner square of the British museum

The courtyard has the mesh structure which is hung loosely from the roof top of the surrounding building. This mesh structure is responsive to the presence of a person on the ground level. The small part of the mesh structure rises forming a small peak, following the trajectory of a person as if a person is carrying invisible stick on his/her head, which extends slightly beyond the height of the building. The second person will add another peak, and so on. The small peaks will moving around the roof level of the courtyard separately, creating the kinetic representation of the indirect communication. When more than two peaks collide, they form explosive volume and stay still for a while. And, when the people move around more fast, the peaks also rise more until the entire mesh structure will rise fully like an inflated dome. When there are more than a certain number of people under the mesh structure, the mesh will also rise fully. When it rises fully, the illusive impression of carrying the sky on the heads will be amplified, and this experience of collective achievement will make people who are involved in the location feel more familiar and attached to each other.
The realization of the mesh structure can be either (1)having the mechanical actuator as the mesh structure which is directly controlled by the system or (2)actuating the fans arranged in a matrix underneath the mesh, and having the wind from the fans to blow the mesh structure which is made of soft material. The second approach seems easier to install, but it requires the further consideration of maintaing the visibility to the mesh.


#2: Seesaw
The second approach delivers more direct communication between people. In this approach, the shared place and goal become the medium, leaving the system as the motivation and catalyst for the communication.

When the battery of mobile communication device is out, it becomes the frustrating situation even for the people who are not in a very urgent situation. People often gather around the place like a cafe for a power supply. The power supply can invite people within a close proximity and has the potential of creating the opportunity for face-to-face communication.

I would like to suggest a seesaw which can generate the emergent electricity for mobile phone or laptop. The seesaw has the outlet for the power plug, and it generates the electricity when the board starts to move up and down. To play the seesaw, it requires two people on each tip of the board, which is shorter in length than the conventional seesaw. The shorter board will position the two people physically closer and would make more chances for them to have the conversation during playing the seesaw. If the two people do not converse, the seesaw will still work as the generator. However, the conversation between the two people will trigger the stronger electricity. The conversation is detected by the microphone which is located in the center of seesaw and the amount of conversation is also indicated by the number of LEDs turned on. The seesaw should be located in an open and visible space in order to protect the players from the potential danger from a stranger.
The seesaw will embrace more frequent communication among the strangers than not having it, because of the following reasons. (1)At least one of the people is not connected through mobile phone or laptop, and this situation tends to make people to feel more interested in the surroundings. (2)The two people are sitting on a seesaw facing each other. The eye contact makes a person to perceive the other one as a real personality which has a “name,” so a facing sitting makes it harder to ignore each other. (3)Especially when both two people need the electricity and they share the common goal and concern, the situation will make it easier to start the conversation. (4)The efficiency of producing the electricity, which can be indicated by the LED, will drive more conversation.

*I found this image on the internet and could not remember the original link.

*see/saw(2001), Camille Utterback & Adam Chapman used the seesaw as the trigger for text and audio response.

Assignment: Augmented interaction part 1

1. Phone like Device for Picnic
2. Communication in Public Space: Strings

Communication in Public Space: Strings

The mobile telecommunication and the internet has been accelerating the characters of the urban experience, which Milgram mentioned, into the global scale. The characters like the disconnection between proximity and friendship, superficial and disposable relationships, difficulty in trusting, anonymity, etc, can also be found in the mobile and web communication context. These characters might seem inhuman, however, it is also true that it may be the essential condition for human to develop these qualities based on the social and cognitive efficiency in order to sustain the balanced life in the current urban setting. People may not have had the options. In order to embrace the interaction among the people in the urban neighborhood, instead of the interaction among the far locations worldwide, it is important to start from what people would not feel overloaded by others or what people would not consider themselves disturbing others.

One thing I was thinking is to install the simple and playful strings in various parts of the city in order to create the relationships among neighbors and, at the same time, to conform to the characters of urban and telecommunicational life. The strings are tied in various public spaces. The string can be plucked by any pedestrians. When it is plucked, the string trembles making playful sinusoid. And this trembling string sends the signal to randomly selected string or strings in the neighborhood in order to make it tremble. Then another person who is sitting on a bench notices that a string in front of him starts trembling. He could ignore it but he plucks back the string as well thinking that there is at least one more person in the neighborhood who is plucking a string like him.

The exchange of plucking can last short or long, or the exchange may not be achieved at all when there is no willing recipients on the other side. Recipients are much more free to disregard the signal because they know it is not an urgent or specific message they can interpret, and because the trembling signal is rather subtle that people can hardly notice when they are in the course of doing something else. But when the people are in a good mood and willing to respond, the exchange of trembling starts going back and forth, and the trembling strings become the pure interaction among urban anonymity which evokes the existence of others and the willingness to communicate, but still without having to challenge the shyness, potential danger, and the responsibility to sustain the relationship.

Phone like Device for Picnic

This idea is to propose the mobile communication device that enables the dialog between two groups in outdoors settings. It has the mic, speaker, camera and the display. The display looks like a round shaped rug which can be rolled for easy transportation and works as a reflective surface of the well. The round shape is for inviting the people into the dialog equally, and by looking into the display, the conversational counterpart can be seen. For example, friends in Boston and LA can go to a picnic and have a chat together in a laid back posture, sitting on the grass, sharing the vision of their faces and the sceneries, although the picnics happen separately in a physical sense. It can also be installed in public space in order to facilitate the dialog among neighbors.

Design Problem 3: concrete and abstract portraits

1. A Portrait Based on the Physical Appearance: My Face Eating
2. A Portrait Based on the Data: A Difference Portrait

A Portrait Based on the Physical Appearance: My Face Eating

I wanted to portray myself based on the mechanical process of visual perception in order to make the self-portrait as objective as possible. Adopting the mechanical process of visual perception and getting rid of other context is needed in order to remove my own subjective preconception about myself. And, myself as an artist has to be alienated from myself as a subject in order to observe the subject as it is. *observing with a macro vision *observation 1: a single clip


What Seth talked last week about the motion portraying and its resemblance to the visual perception inspired the process of observing myself. In order to reflect the way other person's visual perception works on my physical appearance, (1)the motion perception, (2)the narrow focus range of human vision, and (3)the saccadic eye movement have been applied to the process of observing my face.

*observation 2: the motion perception and the narrow focus range of human vision

*saccadic eye movements - the trace of the gaze shows the fixations and jumps of eye movements during perceiving/searching the visual information

*observation 3: plus the saccadic eye movement


The resulting portrait consists of 150 video clips which capture the different parts of a face. A subject is eating to make the motion clearer. The layout of video clips does not appear even and this unevenness is based on the saccadic eye movement pattern during watching a human face. The uneven distribution of visual information makes the face to look like a collection of patches with many missing parts. However, this layout also contributes to acquiring more objectivity of a portrait by excluding, in the portrait, the visual cortex's stabilizing process, which fills in the saccadic gap of visual information based on a person's past visual experience and which can add the relativity to the result of portraying.

*projection of the portrait: the alienation of myself as an artist, a subject, and a viewer, and the coincidence of an artist, a subject, and a viewer. :-)

*click for a larger image

** the vertical lines are due to a projector trouble.

A Portrait Based on the Data: A Difference Portrait

This portrait uses the Google Custom Search Engine which runs based on my Del.icio.us lists with less than ten other people who have the same URL in their lists.


1. The Bookmarks with the Sharers
I tried to be as objective as possible about portraying myself with the data. So, I started with looking at del.icio.us bookmarks, which is the data that I can easily compare with others and I can get the objective perspective about myself.
Bookmarks reveal one’s interest. In each bookmark item in del.icio.us, the number of people sharing the same bookmark is seen.


The bookmark which is saved by many people can be of the high popularity and the universal sympathy. On the other hand, the rare bookmarks can reflect unique personality of its sharer.
Among the bookmarks I have in my del.icio.us, the bookmarks with less number of bookmark sharer can reveal the difference(as opposed to the similarity) of my interest comparing to the public which would make my personality salient.


2. Fifty One Bookmarks with Little Sharers
I decided to select the bookmarks with less than ten bookmark sharers from my del.icio.us page to induce the difference of my interest. There were 51 bookmarks among total 137 bookmarks since 2005. Following is the titles of the 51 bookmarks, and it can give some sense about what I have been interested in and how I am like.

Scientists image vivid ‘brainbows’
Magnetorheological fluid
YouTube - Digital Water Pavilion
hi-shutterbug!
Darfur: a letter from Europe's leading writers - Independent Online Edition > Commentators
International Paper - Characteristics
Home : Lindenmeyr | A Central National-Gottesman, Inc. Company
Paper Making Process: Virtual Tour
Voith AG
Christopher Alexander | Project for Public Spaces (PPS)
Flash Research
Amazon Online Reader : You Are Here
"50 Things"
Typotheque: How Good is Good? by Stefan Sagmeister
Little Pastry Shop - Maison Bertaux on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
croque monsieur on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
ICA_london on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
watch/talk/drink/eat on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Central Point from Southampton Row on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Westferry Road/Lockesfield Place E14 (west) on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Footprint - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nerd's Life - Touchless Interactive Window - LM3Labs Ubiq'window
Superior Picnic Baskets From Blue Ribbon Bakery, Sapa, and Bouchon Bakery -- New York Magazine
Antony Worrall Thompson :: AWT Club :: AWT Online :: AWT Shop
Search The Modern Word: Query Results
Cascando by Samuel Beckett: Division 13 Productions: Joanna Settle, Artistic Director: Katie Taber, Managing Director; Anne DeAcetis, Development Director
Fernando Pessoa
Disquiet: Pessoa's Trunk
Guardian Unlimited Arts | Arts features | Where have you been all my life?
리더십의 근본
태우’s log - web 2.0 and beyond » Blog Archive » 더 많은 것은 좋은 것, 아니면 나쁜 것?
Everything you ever wanted to know about David Walliams
D'or Ahn - Chelsea - New York Magazine Restaurant Guide
First things first 2000 Manifesto - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
First things first 1964 Manifesto - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Design Council | Business
eye | feature | reputation | Graphic Thought Facility
Digital SSALLZIP
Kerr Noble / The European Design Show: Graphic Designers - Design/Designer Information
The centralised road to mediocrity
누가 국민인가
구글이나 엠파스가 성공하는 가장 좋은 방법
구글이 한국에서 성공할 수 없는 이유
Do You MySpace? - New York Times
퀵타임라이브방송공작단 Ver 2.0
About Digitile Ltd
MakeZine.com: Volume 02: Home Entertainment
welcome to the wurst
Interview with Rick Kim of Cyworld (Weekly Broadcast)
Funny animated GIF of Marc Canter hailing a cab
No Social Networking Site Is an Island
An empty language for empty-headed executives


3. The Interactive Data Portrait Which Reveals the Difference of the Interest
However, the information that the title can provide is very limited. The topic and area of interest is reflected in the actual contents of the site the bookmark refers, scarcely in the title. So, I put these data into Google Custom Search Engine to make it possible for the audience to ask and estimate the interest of mine. This customized search engine becomes the interactive portrait which reveals the difference about my interest.
Please feel free to visit and query things here, and let me know how your impression is. Sohin's Difference Portrait


4. Test
I tried some generic keywords and saw what would come out. Since the pool is small, many keywords do not have the results. Here are some interesting results. When I query ‘dog,’ no result appears. I actually like dogs, although I don’t live with a dog now. I may not be interested in dogs as much as I though I would be.

When the keyword ‘designer’ is put, ten results come out which are mostly from the same website.

And ‘David’ makes seven results and four of them refers the same David who is one of my favorite comedian.

assignments #5

1. Two Answers about Portraits
2. Two Portraits

Two Portraits

#1
David Rokeby’s Giver of Names, the preliminary version(1997)
(The image above is the current version of Giver of Names)

Giver of Names is an interactive installation which translates the computer vision of the objects into the spoken language by analyzing the various aspects of visual information of the objects and inducing the implied words and ideas. This current version works as the exploration about how to perceive the still life.

The first preliminary version of Giver of Names only involves in verbal aspect. In the first version, all the written languages David Rokeby produced by the time was processed in the computer. The pattern of his language usage forms the landscape of piles of languages. And the new sentences are generated out of the piles of languages, which can be conceived as the possibility of what he might have written or what he is likely to write in the future. This often absurdly generated language is the portraiture of self-identity with the possibility of occurrence in the past and the future. It raises the question of hypothetical and parallel representation of an identity, shifting the traditional concept of portrait as depicting the past moment of actual occurrence to a richer, more ambiguous and alternative dimension of the portrait creation and appreciation.

#2
Christian Boltanski’s Reflexion(2000)

Many of Christian Boltanski’s works deal with the concept of memory and identity. When the audience enters the gallery, the projected portraits of anonymous evokes the sense of mystery and alien identity about unknown people. The only thing the audience can confirm is that the represented people must have had the specific moment in their life. The appearing and disappearing self images reflected on the mirrors on the wall juxtaposes the past mystery of anonymous’ memory with the image of self wandering in the present. Ironically, once overwhelming evocation of identities soaks into the realistic photographic imageries losing the sense of identity and memory in its anonymity.

Two Answers about Portrait

(1)The changing relationship as the encoder and decoder
The subject person is translated into a portrait mediated by the artist, and the essence of a subject, which is interpreted by the artist, is transmitted to the audience mediated by the work of a portrait. The psychological distance between the artist and the subject person has to be intimate in order for the artist to engrave the essence of the subject person in a portrait. The essence of the subject person in a portrait is read through the audience’s view. The change of relationship can be explained by this encoding and decoding experience.

The audience’s experience of a static portrait, as opposed concept to the interactive portrait, is of the decoder. He reads the implied meaning out of the still portrait. The impression changes and it is re-processed over and over, as the context he confronts or recalls the portrait changes. The interactivity regarding appreciating the static portrait occurs only in the audience’s brain on a perceptual and cognitive level. But when the portrait becomes literally interactive, the interactivity in the audience’s brain seems to decrease, while the actual interactivity in a physical space increases. Because, as the responsive and interactive object gets more of the audience’s visual and auditory attention, the interactivity in a cognitive level gets more or less limited. However, the interactive portrait also opens the chance of the audience to participate or intervene the result of a portrait in a literal and obvious way, being the encoder and encoded himself, resulting in the alteration of other audience’s experience of the portrait as well. As a result, the audience becomes less a decoder and more a encoder.

The artist’s experience of a static portrait is of an encoder. He engraves the essence of the subject, which is closely read out of the subject person by the artist, onto the portrait. He holds the status as the only encoder, regardless of the various decodings and responses by the audience. The interactivity the artist experiences is the psychological association with the subject person before completing the work and the responses and critics after the releasing the work. When the portrait becomes interactive, the artist becomes less a encoder, because the audience gets the chance of intervening the work as an encoder. However, the role of artist as an encoder would not get much weaken because the artist comes to have another chance of being an encoder, the designer of the system. Once the artist makes the system, the system can be fairly open about the encoded(both the original subject and the following result). Whether the artist takes the portrait system as the generator of universal statement about the portraiture or he designs and uses the system for a specific purpose, completely remains as the artist’s intention. But the potential of the audience’s being the part of the encoder and the artist’s being the designer of the system seems to be appearing.




(2)The validation of the portrait
The function of the portrait differs depending on the era and the context, although it can be generally considered to be produced to convey a certain individual’s inner or outer quality to a larger or restricted audience. Since many artists produce the work inspired by themselves, the work of art such as “My Bed” by Tracey Emin can be included as a portrait in a broader sense. West especially argues that the portrait functions as a work of an art, a biography, a document, proxy and gift, and as a commemoration, while Brilliant emphasizes the historical challenges of the artistic statement of portraits among its functions as reference, representation, and symbol.

What the portrait tries to convey can be anything from the physical appearance and the mental character to the social status of a subject person. Also, regardless of what the portrait wants to convey, the form of portrait can relate either to the realistic imagery or to the abstract representation.

The portrait of realistic imagery can function better where its visual likeness is important. When the portrait is used as the mean of propaganda, the imagery has to be realistic not to be misunderstood about its denotational subject. The photographs in political campaign and the celebrity’s press photos are the examples. When the portrait is used as a symbol, it also tends to be realistic, because the meaning of the portrait is almost outside the portrait and the portrait itself has less room for its formal intervention.

When I see the example of Klee’s “A New Face,” the abstract portrait seems better in depicting the inner state of a subject itself such as the tension and irony. For Klee’s kind of abstract portrait, the abstract quality of human emotion can draw more attention by omitting out the concrete figure. Since this omission of figure results in the weaker presence of a specific person, the abstract quality becomes more or less free from the original subject person. So the abstract portrait tends to work better in conveying the universal sympathy about the inner personality regardless of the original subject.

Among the various types of the portraits, such as the audible and visible types, one character that can be induced from them is that the portrait delivers salient or ambiguous personality in a perceivable form, which is still not necessarily conceivable clearly. Because of its translation into perceivable form and the selective delivery, the artist becomes the interpreter of a personality. And, from a viewer’s point, passing through the artist’s interpretation and his/her own interpretation, appreciating the portrait becomes the experience of ambiguity and mystery about a person which can be decoded by multiple levels.

Thus the portrait without face can function as a portrait. The face is the most distinctive feature of a human appearance, so the portrait without face might not be suitable for propaganda purpose. However, because of the face’s distinctive feature, as we can see from the example of Paul Outerbridge’s “Self-Portrait,” losing face can work as re-contextualizing the portrait closer to the abstract one. The face is only a part of human quality indeed, and not having face enhances the richness and the mystery of its appreciation.

On the other hand, the functionality of genomic representation as a portrait seems to be more or less limited, because the scientific and social implication of the genome code is too strong for describing one specific individual, and the genomic code itself is too specific for depicting a person’s rich and ambiguous quality. It only describes the genome information which each person was borne with and has not changed since, but it cannot reflect the acquired quality of a person which dominates the overall personality of a person. Only when the personality of a subject person has specific relation to the genome code, such as Sir John Sulston, James D. Watson or a person who suffered from a rare genetic disease, the contextual balance between the genome code and a personality can occur. And the absoluteness and accuracy of the code makes the portrait less mystery.

Another limitation of genetic approach is that the genomic code is not very distinguishable among people(99.97% of genetic information is all the same). I wonder how much the fingerprints differ among the people and whether the difference is less than the genome’s case. I would imagine that portraying someone’s neuronal connection can be a better portraiture than the genomic code, because the pattern of neuronal connection is formed differently depending on the cognitive stimuli and the experience each person acquires.

But it does not mean that the genomic representation generally cannot be the meaningful way of portraying a person. Even when the genomic portrait uses the genomic information of a specific person, the point of genomic representation more evokes the question of what human is and where it comes from. It becomes the artistic statement rather than trying to represent the personality itself. And, despite the absolute and unique character of individual’s genome code, the genomic representation comes to locate within the social and artistic context. The relative quality such as the similarity as a human race, and the matter of heritage can be dealt with in a direct way, when using the genomic approach. And again, because of its ephemeral implication relating to the social context, the genomic representation may function the best when the genomic issue is huge around the society, just as other types of portrait also has flourished and disappeared as time goes by.

4th week's assignments

1. traces of time
2. procrastinator's diary

procrastinator's diary: a personal time-line project

Last Saturday, I spent around six hours outside home between 12:15 and 6:15pm. As I try to track down the changes of locations, people I met, tasks on that afternoon, I realized that there are big differences between what I planned and what I did. The differences could be classified into five categories: planned and didn’t do / planned and deferred / planned and did on time / planned and advanced / unplanned and did. I modified the Google calendar's visual scheme because this is the way I conceive and plan about the time these days.

So I compared the plans and the actual actions in a form of linear table. The left column is what I originally planned, and the right column is what I actually did. During the six hours of going out, which started right after I put some documentary films in the downloading queue(which was not originally planned as well), I hardly did what I planned except 30 minutes of visiting the chiropractor.
*The plan and action on Saturday afternoon of 03/08/2008.

I found that what I did instead of what I planned did not occur completely all of a sudden. In most cases, the things I did were supposed to be done earlier or later. So I extended the timeline to see where they come from. It can be seen that the coffee at Simon’s and the sneaker shopping are supposed to be done earlier in the morning, and I had dinner much earlier than I planned. Instead, Cleaning, which was not scheduled, was done when the dinner was expected. On the other hand, the tasks I am supposed to do in the afternoon are all delayed. What I didn’t do among the schedules was writing the essay01, and it was not written at all until the next day.

The essay01, which I planned to finish by 6pm on Saturday, has been finished around 8:30pm on Sunday, after many delays and unexpected events occurred. Following is the full extension of timeline which includes both where the tasks I planned but didn't do are going and where the tasks I didn't plan but did are coming from. This relative timeline is extended to the duration between 9am on Saturday and 8:30pm on Sunday. And during the course of time, other than between 12pm, and 6pm on Saturday, there are also other things which were done/delayed/cancelled etc.

The text on the left side is the objective time and date, while the right side is the subjective time defined by when the task is supposed to happen. The texts on the right shows the time and date I am living at, according to my plan. There is a huge gap and mixed-up between the time I assume and I live. The time I live is subject and mixed up, and it is subject both in a sense of its length and order.

the trace of time

#1China Town in New York City (2007)

The layers of the advertisements on the surface of posts in the street reveal the stack of time. The partly torn papers show the back and forth progression(tear and stick) of the growing amount of stacking papers.



#2Cy Twombly (1985) Wilder Shores of Love
Oil, crayon, and pencil on plywood
55 1/8 x 47 1/4" (140 x 120 cm)
Private collection

In the painting by Cy Twombly, the traces of time are engraved in the form of brush strokes and scribbles. The brush strokes at the bottom and the scribbles on the top show the trace of the brush with which we can imagine how the brush would have moved on the canvas in process of time. The layered strokes and the intensity of color also imply the preceding and following of order and direction of applying the brush.

3rd week's assignments

1. Bonvillain vs. Online Communication
2. representation of face-to-face and online communicative interaction

representation of face-to-face and online communicative interaction

In the face-to-face interaction, the speaker comes and goes to join and leave the conversation, while, during the online interaction, the speaker apears and disappears. The reason speakers appear and disappear in online interaction is that the joining and leaving is based on the accessability rather than on neighboring to someone to talk to. Moreover, even if we say there is the physical movement and the trajectory the speaker browse through the online world, the trajectory would be so complex and would not follow a simple geometry, because the relation of space and time is not one-on-one in the online world. In the real world, the physical presence is required for conversation because the speaker can exist only one place at a time. However, in the virtual world, the speaker can appear at several places at a time, chatting with each people at the same time or participating in several discussions simultaneously. Following four representations are illustrating the space specific and time specific of the face-to-face and online interaction.

(1) face to face: the space specific
-come and go


(2) online: the space specific
-appear and disappear


(1”) face to face: the time specific
-i am, now, here.



(2”) online: the time specific
-i am, now, here and there and else where.

Bonvillain vs. Online Communication

During the comparison between the online communication and the face-to-face interaction analyzed by Bonvillain, the biggest difference is the structural properties of conversation. The reason that makes the structural difference seems to be because the uttered words are not volatile in an online environment. The comparisons below are mostly between the face-to-face interaction and text-based online discussion which is more different from real world conversation. (The interaction occurred in IM conversation is the most and similar to face-to-face conversation among online discussion, blogging and IM. IM is similar to real world conversation in many ways such as the requirement of coincidence of time). The elements related to postulates, directiveness and politeness appear quite similar in both face-to-face and online interaction, except some aspects like using of linguistic alternatives by the intonation.

(1)While taking the turn, the face-to-face interaction has no or slight gap(or overlap). However, in the online discussion board, the big gaps are often observed, and the overlaps are hardly seen. Even when the overlap between two opinions can be seen, it is rather a accidental “simultaneous talk,” which cannot be acknowledged and repaired until the writers and readers can see both opinions being posted with little time difference. The gaps are sometimes very big that the recent comment has been posted several months after the previous comment. The continuity of time of utterance does not seem a critical factor for the online discussion board, while it is very important for the face-to-face interaction which requires the participants to present with time and spatial coincidence for its occurrence. For the participants being free from the time and spatial coincidence is one significant difference of the online communicative interaction comparing to the face-to-face interaction.

(2)Another significant aspect of online discussion interaction is that there lacks closing very often. The online conversation in a discussion board setting can last forever as long as its topic is interesting to the present and potential participants. The reason seems to be because the online discussion is more bound to the topic of participant’s interest than the simultaneous time and spatial presence of the participants. Since the online discussion comes to continue sporadically and forever, the lack of closing again increases the big gaps seen between the online communication.

(3)There is little way to see if anyone is listening to what I am saying during the online discussion before the response is posted. Sometimes the hit number can be the evidence that someone has at least viewed my words but the hit number does not guarantee the active listenership. There is little concept of active listenership with background cues in online conversation.

In addition to the differences directly inferred from Bonvillain’s analysis, there are some more distinctive characters of communicative interaction in online conversation.

(4)A participant of an online conversation can participate in multiple conversations in parallel without having his/her conversational partners to notice or feel being treated impolitely.

(5)In face-to-face interaction, there is a thinking process before utterance. In online communicative interaction, there is additional process such as typing between thinking and uttering. This additional process, typing, is a form of utterance in the speaker’s cognitive world, but it is not an utterance from the public’s view until the speaker clicks the publish button or pushes the enter key. The speaker has the option of changing his/her words or whether to publicize the words until the publish button and enter key.

(6)In face-to-face interaction, the spilt utterance is irreversible. But in case of online communication, the spilt milk sometimes can be gathered by deleting the post.

2nd week's assignments

1.the legibility of a cup
2.talk equal: a conversational space for the balanced opportunity of speech

talk equal

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


-a closed curve forms the conversational area

-the shape of closed curve is defined by the number of participant
-each participants has their own area of petal shape

-the area of each petal increases and decreases in proportion to the amount of talk of its owner
-the total area of closed curve is fixed

-when one participant dominates the conversation and the petal gets too big, the text becomes dimmer and illegible
-the background color changes warning of the dominancy of conversation
-the background color aslo helps making the dominant text illegible

-the invisible text prevents the dominant participant from continuing talking until the size of overall petals recovers its balance
-because of the invisible text, other participants have more chance to talk while the petals recover the balance
-as the petal size recovers, the background color and the intensity of text color recovers as well

the legibility of a cup

What is it? What do we do with this hollow and empty cylinder? It is a container. The cylindric hollow is good for holding things within the structure. It can contain anything from liquid, grain, rocks, air, and clothes. Of course, I know it is a cup. A cup is the container for drinks which we grasp and take toward the lips to slide the liquid into the mouth. Then how do we read it as a cup just by looking at it? What visual cues make us to perceive it as a cup among other containers?

(1)Scale
The scale gives us the clue about how we relate to a cup. It can be decoded from the scale that the cup is small enough to be graspable.

(2)Shape
The shape can add more clue about whether it invites our hands to touch it, whether it helps liquid to flow in an intended direction, and whether it invites us to put our lips onto it. It can be decoded from a spiky surface that this object is not meant to be grabbed. The smooth surface invites the touching of hands. Also, the rounded edge of the cylindric shape is proper for the lips to touch. If it is square-shaped, it is not as inviting as a rounded edge from an ergonomic point of view. Also, the liquid will only flow in an intended direction at the four points of the end of four sides.

Some clues about handling is a very useful way in judging whether it is a cup or not. A square does not help the object to look like a cup, while adding an ear-shaped handle suddenly makes the object to look like a cup although the object is square-shaped. The shape of a handle is also one reason why the giant sculpture above looks like a cup in spite of its scale. But the unconventional shape of handle does not help the object to look like a cup, because the visual and experiential unfamiliarity interrupts the efficiency of object recognition. So it can be said that the acquired social knowledge also affects the legibility.

In some cases, the shape also tells which part to direct the cup toward the lips.

(3)Material
The material can be another clue for decoding of the meaning of the object. Although it has the shape of the cup, the mesh and cloth does not make the object to look like an actual cup, because it seems not to be able to function as a cup. The container made of mesh or cloth would not hold the liquid. It will spill the liquid or it will get wet(and spill the liquid).

Conclusion
A cup becomes distinguishable among other containers based on the clues coded, for example, in its scale, shape and material. And these clues form our conventional expectation about something perceived as a cup. The contribution of the clues sometimes differs. The legibility of a cup depends on whether or how easily these clues can be decoded from the object.



a question:
The left one is a cup for infant, and the right one is a water glass. The left one seems to have many clues for being perceived as a cup. It is round, it has smooth surface, it has two handles for the ones with weaker grasping strength, and it has the direction for locating the mouth. On the other hand, the right one has less clues. It is round and smooth. However, the left one does not seem to be more legible than the right one. Then why is the left one less legible when it has more clues? How does the right one achieve more legibility? Does it relate to the efficiency of communication achieved by focusing the point? Or does it mean the abstractness(of the right one’s shape) can convey more powerful and intuitive meaning?