Team: Vanessa Van/ Luchen Peng/ Qendresa Selimi/ Vanessa Van/ Zhaolu Song
Brief: Design a digital & physical object that prehends its surroundings.
Time: 01.02.2021-05.02.2021
Prehending Distance
Through last week's larping, we found that the most obvious prehension of the calendar is distance. How to reshape an equal relationship between calendars and humans by prehending distance? We decided to emotionalize the calendar by the way that it won’t show the date when the human is getting close until comforting it.
Though we imagined ourselves as a calendar during larping, I don’t think we, humans, can understand its prehension. So, I came up with the idea that the prehension of distance could be something that seems random and meaningless to humans, but it makes sense to the entity itself.
Comforted by touching
Tactile is a very direct way to prehend each other, like people speaking different languages or even two different species, they can prehend each other by touching. By petting the calendar, humans can build an equal relationship with the calendar therefore the date will appear.
“The functional definition of child in contemporary culture is a person who is still capable of talking to not only alive non-human beings but stuffed animals as if they are alive.” - Morton, 2017.
After discussion, we decided to design a calendar with a distance sensor and a sponge switch, and it will show nonsense patterns according to the distance with its owner and show the date when be comforted by touch.
Initial design. Sketch by me.
Assembling Prototype. Photo by me.
Random pattern test. Video by me.
Rethink calendar’s prehension
Tyler questioned the prehension of distance and suggested us to rethink what is meaningful for a calendar to prehend. Besides, he proposed to make it more functional and playful.
By rethinking the meaning of prehension, I realized that the mutual influence between actual entities is limited by time and space. For a calendar, the distance is less influential compared to other prehension. So, we decided to narrow the prehension to touch. Besides, we also discussed about feeding the calendar as a way of inputting information.
Making process +Tech problem +Testing
The making process was quite difficult for us and we spent lots of time to deal with material and tech problems during the process.
Making process and coding. Photo by me.
Sponge switch test. Video by me.
Final Design “Cally”
Our final design is “Cally”, an emotionalized calendar that prehends petting and feeding from humans to record and show date and events.
Final design: Cally. Photo by me.
"Cally". Actor: luchen. Filmed by Vanassa. Script by me.
The outcome was quite success and my classmates loved our idea and the video. They were fascinated by the clear explanation of prehension. Besides, there are some questions can be thought further, like John said, what if the whole calendar is a sponge and touchable and like Alaistair asked, could the relationship change over time.
Overall, I’m very satisfied with what we finished and enjoyed the design process. Thinking of the relationship between humans and other non-human entities is quite inspirational. Humans are just a part of the whole universe and are affecting other entities all the time. I don’t think humans can really understand non-human entities’ prehension, but they do can prehend each other and co-evolute overtime.
References
Morton, T. (2017) Timothy Morton in Conversation with Verso. 27 September. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AEy2KmHwh0&t=1472s (Accessed: 02 February 2021).
Zakbobdop. (no date) How to Make Really Cheap Pressure Sensors. Available at: https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Make-Really-Cheap-Pressure-Sensors/ (Accessed: 03 February 2021).
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