Final research

Anders Lind’s project LINES. He put three kinds of devices in the same room, there are three methods by which you can interact with the device. One is that you touch the lines on the wall, and they will make different notes. The second is that when you step on different lines, it will make different notes in a different rhythm. The third is that when you stand below a single stick, it will play a chord, and standing below different stick will make a different chord, and when you squat your body, the column will become upper and lower with your body. The audience can interact with this project in multiple ways, using different parts of their body, also the device has multiple functions, enhancing the interaction between people and devices. In addition, it also developed people’s understanding of the device by making the response of the device more and more complicated. 

The project made by Hu Shuai is a device that can capture human facial expressions and make smells depending on the expression. 

I think it is a very successful project. My definition of interaction was developed by my previous research, now I think the most important thing about interactive is that the designer should stand in the audience’s shoes to design the project, they should make sure that the audience can get their purpose and really enjoy in the project and participate in it. As Edmonds said, “engagement and experience are important. Interactive art systems involve artifacts and audiences equally.”

In Anders Lind’s project, people can totally understand what they should do to interact with the project, and the guidance is clear. In addition, because the interaction is also a developing process, so it can make the audience more engaged in that project and feel more connected with it. There is more interaction between the project and the audience. 

In Hu’s project, the machine makes the smell by the human’s facial expression, which means that the audience is the maker of the smell. It indicates that the audience engages in this project a lot and is tightly connected with the project. In addition, the smells made by the audience are different, so they will try several times to see the difference between every smells they made, which makes more interaction between the device and the audience. Thus, I think it is a very successful project.