DESIGNING AN INTIMATE DEVICE
Technology has become such an integral and intimate part of our everyday existence in how we receive and experience information. As such, my use of the telephone also tries to incorporate a shared participation and use of everyday technology as advocated by the British Group, The Disembodied Art Gallery, 1992. They use telecommunication technology ‘in a manner, which has much in common with the ideas of cultural jamming.’ [1] They see the phone as ‘physical; it creates and intimate space that unites people over distance, even across time.’ [2]
With my stetho-phone I have given it an additional feature that enables you to connect with the inner ‘self’ or body organs; the oximeter used as a sensor to detect heart data. I take this capacity further by bringing it into play with the psychological functions of an intimate communication device, the telephone, embedded with a DIY biofeedback system that heightens the intimacy of the experience by being able to communicate with your heart.
The ringing sound and other participatory functions are applied in the interfacing of hardware, software and user. With the advent of mobile phone technology, the public phone (as in phone booths) is becoming more outdated and obsolete. My phone harks back to a pre-mobile time when few people could resist the urge the pick up the phone ringing in a public space; and perhaps talk to a stranger. I have applied this function as aesthetics of the installation space; when visitors walk into the phone’s range, its ringing sound entices visitors to pick up the call.
The stetho-phone is a modified version of a ‘picturephone’ set Mod II launched by AT&T in 1969 (see figure below). It is made of a traditional 12-button touch-tone desk phone with the handset embedded with a pulse oximeter sensor. A tiny LED on its base turns ON and OFF synchronously with her/his actual pulses. Using object-oriented softwares like “Arduino” and “Processing” and “Arduino Mega” microcontroller, I can manipulate its keypad to work like a computer keyboard; add an LCD to improve user experience; and implement a distance sensor to detect a passer-by. Once the users pick up the handset and type in their biological identities, the oximeter senses the pulse and its circuit triggers the software algorithm to generate visual and auditory forms of heart rhythm. A changing wall pattern is projected onto a wall and a pair of loudspeakers amplifies a changing ambience of heart signals according to the rate of her/his heartbeats per minute.
Role model of stetho-phone, Mod II was launched in 1969 with a small monitor allowing the user to see the person on the other end of the line. Poster from porticus.org
Prototype of stetho-phone (1st phase development) Figure-left: a prototype of ’stetho-phone’ with a keypad that works like a computer keyboard. The user input their biometric data which the phone system processes with the pulse rates, and then generates all the information into audio and visual patterns. The phone also has a save button that allows the user to record the patterns and send them to their email addresses. Figure-right: the projected wallpaper from the ‘stetho-phone’ takes up a whole wall space x 4 (5m by 3m) in an effort to make the experience more immersive for the users. The wallpapers are unique to all users as they input their personal data via the phone’s keypad and feed their pulses through the oximeter. Image captured from 1st phase of development presented at Kinetica Art Fair March 2009, London
McLuhan (1964) claims that the word ‘telephone’ first appeared in 1840 before Alexander Graham Bell’s time, when used to describe an invention for sending musical notes through wooden rods. It only became a device used for verbal communication in the 1870s. Paying homage to its pre-history, I have modified the small speaker in the earpiece to amplify the rhythmic notes corresponding to the changing rate of the user’s heartbeats. In terms of a technical challenge in designing tools for interactive art, I have overcome the problem of merging ‘sensor’ and ‘actuator’ into one object.
Comparing telephone with auditory machines like radio, McLuhan says that a telephone does not exist like instruments that make background noise since its participatory form requires a partner, and that is why ‘we feel compelled to answer a ringing public phone.’ [3] Reversing his assertion that ‘one alone cannot make a phone call.’ [3], my stetho-phone enables the user to communicate with her/himself as well. Its responsive capacities put the user in touch with her/his “inner” bio-self and others within the installation space.
Note:
[1] Wilson, Stephen, Body and Medicine. In: Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology, London: The MIT Press, 2002, p.490
[2] Wilson, Stephen, Body and Medicine. In: Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology, London: The MIT Press, 2002, p.494
[3] McLuhan, Marshall (1964), The Telephone. In: Understanding Media: The Extension of Man, London: Routledge, 1997, p.267
DESIGN STATEMENT
DESIGNING AN INTIMATE DEVICE
Technology has become such an integral and intimate part of our everyday existence in how we receive and experience information. As such, my use of the telephone also tries to incorporate a shared participation and use of everyday technology as advocated by the British Group, The Disembodied Art Gallery, 1992. They use telecommunication technology ‘in a manner, which has much in common with the ideas of cultural jamming.’ [1] They see the phone as ‘physical; it creates and intimate space that unites people over distance, even across time.’ [2]
With my stetho-phone I have given it an additional feature that enables you to connect with the inner ‘self’ or body organs; the oximeter used as a sensor to detect heart data. I take this capacity further by bringing it into play with the psychological functions of an intimate communication device, the telephone, embedded with a DIY biofeedback system that heightens the intimacy of the experience by being able to communicate with your heart.
The ringing sound and other participatory functions are applied in the interfacing of hardware, software and user. With the advent of mobile phone technology, the public phone (as in phone booths) is becoming more outdated and obsolete. My phone harks back to a pre-mobile time when few people could resist the urge the pick up the phone ringing in a public space; and perhaps talk to a stranger. I have applied this function as aesthetics of the installation space; when visitors walk into the phone’s range, its ringing sound entices visitors to pick up the call.
The stetho-phone is a modified version of a ‘picturephone’ set Mod II launched by AT&T in 1969 (see figure below). It is made of a traditional 12-button touch-tone desk phone with the handset embedded with a pulse oximeter sensor. A tiny LED on its base turns ON and OFF synchronously with her/his actual pulses. Using object-oriented softwares like “Arduino” and “Processing” and “Arduino Mega” microcontroller, I can manipulate its keypad to work like a computer keyboard; add an LCD to improve user experience; and implement a distance sensor to detect a passer-by. Once the users pick up the handset and type in their biological identities, the oximeter senses the pulse and its circuit triggers the software algorithm to generate visual and auditory forms of heart rhythm. A changing wall pattern is projected onto a wall and a pair of loudspeakers amplifies a changing ambience of heart signals according to the rate of her/his heartbeats per minute.
Role model of stetho-phone, Mod II was launched in 1969 with a small monitor allowing the user to see the person on the other end of the line. Poster from porticus.org
Prototype of stetho-phone (1st phase development) Figure-left: a prototype of ’stetho-phone’ with a keypad that works like a computer keyboard. The user input their biometric data which the phone system processes with the pulse rates, and then generates all the information into audio and visual patterns. The phone also has a save button that allows the user to record the patterns and send them to their email addresses. Figure-right: the projected wallpaper from the ‘stetho-phone’ takes up a whole wall space x 4 (5m by 3m) in an effort to make the experience more immersive for the users. The wallpapers are unique to all users as they input their personal data via the phone’s keypad and feed their pulses through the oximeter. Image captured from 1st phase of development presented at Kinetica Art Fair March 2009, London
McLuhan (1964) claims that the word ‘telephone’ first appeared in 1840 before Alexander Graham Bell’s time, when used to describe an invention for sending musical notes through wooden rods. It only became a device used for verbal communication in the 1870s. Paying homage to its pre-history, I have modified the small speaker in the earpiece to amplify the rhythmic notes corresponding to the changing rate of the user’s heartbeats. In terms of a technical challenge in designing tools for interactive art, I have overcome the problem of merging ‘sensor’ and ‘actuator’ into one object.
Comparing telephone with auditory machines like radio, McLuhan says that a telephone does not exist like instruments that make background noise since its participatory form requires a partner, and that is why ‘we feel compelled to answer a ringing public phone.’ [3] Reversing his assertion that ‘one alone cannot make a phone call.’ [3], my stetho-phone enables the user to communicate with her/himself as well. Its responsive capacities put the user in touch with her/his “inner” bio-self and others within the installation space.
Note:
[1] Wilson, Stephen, Body and Medicine. In: Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology, London: The MIT Press, 2002, p.490
[2] Wilson, Stephen, Body and Medicine. In: Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology, London: The MIT Press, 2002, p.494
[3] McLuhan, Marshall (1964), The Telephone. In: Understanding Media: The Extension of Man, London: Routledge, 1997, p.267