My first Interaction Lab blog post(Performance)

September 26,2023.   Vivian

 

Above all, here is our group performance video.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Cb_yFy30sFXPM2EvAb-y47QOAgqrwcFA/view?usp=sharing

 

Inspired by many people’s problem that they are too busy to choose their outfit or they have difficulty choosing what to wear.Our group came up with the idea of a artifact which can solve this kind of problems.We named our work Barbie AI.Just as its name, this is an interactive artifact which can detect the weather and the user’s mood and the body condition automatically.(Like Barbie’s dream wardrobe!)In our assumption, it can use internet access and database of the users to determine the fashion trends, as well as personally tailor clothes with the most suitable fabrics.Because it is closely related to our daily life, all the people, especially those who are anxious about how to choose their outfit, are the target audience.When someone wants to use the “machine”,he just needs to step into it, letting the machine scan your body and showing the consequence.(Is it very simple?)

Actually, our idea fits my definition very well.As I wrote in my research report,”Interaction” refers to the process that two or more subjects respond and communicate with each other.And in the function process of Barbie AI, it detects user’s mood and determines the clothes, providing the best result it analyzed for the users.This is a process of user outputs, machine inputs then outputs, finally user inputs(wear the clothes). 

In reality, we mainly use the cardboard to create our artifact.Also, to better fit our concept “Barbie”, we painted the cardboard pink and stick some bow-knots on it.What’s more, we printed pictures as the “screen” of the machine.During the process,I helped tie the bow-knots, paint the cardboard and cut the pictures out.

Here is our work!

Then, we organized our performance and performed in last Sunday’s show.Ting and I played a role who are the protagonist’s friends, and we were responsible for advancing the plot.Tina and Cassy played the main character,Tina(before and after),Vilius played Tina’s father,  Ammna and Boyan played the machine.

From my perspective, our performance is successful.(Just personal opinion!)Our group members tried our best.We clearly showed how the machine interact by letting two actresses perform before and after the outfit changed.Of course, the artifact is not perfect and it is existing in our imagination.There are still some challenges we need to consider if the machine is put into use in reality, such as the unemployment of designers, negative effects of monopolies, and the lack of human creativity.These will also be our directions of improvement.

During the whole show, other groups also gave wonderful performance.I was deeply impressed by group G’s performance and their work Hypersomniac 2000.The reason why their work left me deep impression was that the main purpose of their work is to intelligently regulate sleep, which is related to the daily life and doesn’t have so much complex world view.(Just like ours)Besides, I sometimes suffer from my sleep problems, too.And the artifact is useful for those people like me! Hypersomniac 2000 enters the user’s sleep issue, waking up sleepy people and giving insomniacs a good sleep.It implements interaction between input and output, so I think it meets the criteria of the assignment. Moreover, their performance was very concise and interesting, making it easier for audience to understand.But if they could show the process of interaction to let us audience directly know how the machine function, making the introduction as part of their show, instead of completely abstractly feeling from their performance, their performance would be better.

 

Last but not least, this was a successful show, both for our group and all the other groups.We really enjoyed the preparation process and the performance。Looking forward to the next IMA event!

 

P.S.our simple script

Scene1: School;Tina with her two friends;Tina’s friends tell their difficulty choosing outfit,Tina mentions the Barbie AI machine

 

Scene2:Tina’s house;Tina,Tina’s two friends,Tina’s father;Tina’s father introduces the machine to Tina’s friends,Tina tries to use the machine to change her clothes and the two friends are all surprised and loved the Barbie AI machine.

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