This YouTube video documents the call break segment of the cable access show rAw TiMe that shared alternative music videos past midnight O’clock to an Austin, Texas audience in 1999. This time capsule serves to document the early effects of new communication technologies on social interaction, whereby introduced anonymity encouraged the majority of the call-ins to be prank-calls or verbal harassment directed towards the host of the segment. Conceptualised in 2011, 21 Balancoires (21 Swings) by Daily tous les jours is an interactive art piece that revived the thoroughfare between a music venue and science faulty in Montreal with a set of 21 swings. 21 Balancoires combats the modern urban problem of social disconnection by encouraging interaction between strangers through methods of reawakening common childhood anchors and inherent inclinations such as movement, music and rhythm. For two strangers to take an elevator without a shared word, this I find absurd, yet it seems to be the direction of a progressing civilisation, but why should you care when a clean shirt, social contract and cellphone numbs your fight, flight and fr*ck and coddles your attention? I define ‘Interaction’ as a collection of inputs, outputs and their relations taking place between at least two agents, or what we really care about – us and the world – and serving a profound purpose – worldbuilding. With new media and communication technology, considering this lens explains the modern social disconnection as our attention and interaction is dispersed and spanned across varying channels that reward us with a convoluted worldview detached from the here and now. In 21 Balancoires, the collective effort and corresponding pleasantly rewarding visual, rhythmic and social feedback in the interaction between surprised strangers in the urban environment make the interaction so successful, especially so when we find out there is a beating heart within the suit. In the call break segment where callers had limited accountability for their actions, the brief and shallow harassment was seemingly deemed insignificant and dismissed, yet the occasional call of support for the goth, female host was held longer and appreciated, though the effect on the validity of calls of this nature due to the anonymity is unclear. At the very least, the aspect of anonymity introduces a novel dynamic to social interaction that this project hopes to explore. ‘Loveshot’ is a heart-shaped pingpong ball launcher that is intended to be stationed in public spaces, encouraging the violent and friendly circulation of anonymous messages and drawings, and interaction between strangers. The inspiration is that certain environments today are lacking in community connection or are not conducive of positive interaction, and ‘Loveshot’ aims to fix this.
Today, the market for attention is HOT and only getting hotter with digital devices and internet, and as such, I wanted to bring back the mechanical for seamless flow of user understanding, decision making and experience. At the same time, the social and public nature of the project calls for top aesthetic execution. ‘Loveshot’ establishes a friendly, positive mood on the theme of emotion with its heart shape and friendly eyes, whilst welcoming a soft embrace being draped in red velvet where it is socially acceptable. The jewel-crowned golden key perfectly fits into a shiny, turquoise, croc-skin lined keyhole with an insert and twist, just as enzyme inhibitor _Zi_ finds its specific enzyme _Z_: inevitable and consequentially causing shaking. The matching shiny, turquoise, croc-skin lined hole into darkness at the top calls for the inserting of something, with that something maybe being a pingpong ball from a conveniently placed box of pingpong balls with a pen that maybe encourages writing on the small canvas of said pingpong balls. Finally, the set of rose-gold wannabe copper-coated embodied heart beats completes the set of shiny items that draw attention and interaction, and triggers the projectile when touched. These shiny items contrast the velvet covered and red painted cardboard hull of the heart that is build sturdy for when the user is in need of a hug or a 360° traverse and 10°/-45° elevation featured mobile cannon, why not both. Finally, all the chips and wires are hidden in the accessible basement compartment because no one, especially me, wants to see that. We had no regrets with the choice of materials: the themes are simple and effective. The cardboard was universally accepted as easy enough to handle and both sturdy and flexible, making the process of bringing ideas to reality as efficient as possible when paired with box cutter and hot glue. On aesthetic materials, you can’t go wrong with paint, and gold and shiny anything really, and while the mummifying of the heart in red velvet string was time consuming and finicky due to the great surface area, it was totally worth it. Beyond cosmetics and efficiency, one area we spent a lot of energy towards was the optimisation of functionality, carefully experimenting with various springs and surfaces for the shaking mechanism, and various sponges, fabrics and motors for the projectile mechanism.
Just as life takes us on a journey, ‘Loveshot’ has gone through many evolutions whilst remaining loyal to the goal of addressing social chasms through love. First conceived as an adult-sized swing that would launch emo dolls, ‘Loveshot’ was better off staying an idea lost in consciousness, though themes of manifested emotional projection survived. ‘Loveshot’ was birthed into the game of life, taking Lotto Powerball’s eyes and Pinball’s attitude. Entering its glue infused teenager years, ‘Loveshot’ was easily triggered: when picked up they would shake, shout and start building pent up pingpong balls, and when touched the wrong way would have a small chance to explode, making them both unpredictable and annoying. Psychologists say that at this stage, “they start to shake and shout due to a tilt sensor being triggered 5 times, with the shaking being the bouncing internal cardboard plate attached to the inside walls by four thin springs strategically positioned for maximal amplitude, and the shouting being a combination of bouncing balls on the shaking plate and two DC motors revving past redline and occasionally forcing balls through. The second trigger is two embodied heart beats wrapped in copper tape and attached to a capacitive touch sensor that activates two 180° servos with cardboard flippers to stimulate ball activity. Furthermore, they seem to be internally confused… the code is complicated providing little additional reward for greater cost in reliability and readability.” Doctor’s report was confirmed on testing day, where ‘Loveshot’ was shooting blanks presumably due to high stress, sleep deprivation and being shy. I viewed this day as a success as the path forward was made very clear after apparent performance faults, peer feedback and inspiration from other peers’ projects. ‘Loveshot’ was too complicated in its systems of interaction, and unreliable in its goal of projecting pingpong balls when triggered by the sensor. We decided to replace the tilt sensor with a physical lock and key so that the initiating interaction was made very intuitive. We removed the flippers and installed an airlock mechanism made of two electric solenoids that, when triggered by the heartbeat sensor, would let a ball or two through, giving us a reliable outcome in contrast to that from the flippers. My partner and I worked together on every major part of the project – brainstorming, construction and coding – so that we understood exactly what was going on everywhere and could simply dedicate more time and energy towards parts if necessary. While it is nice to always be on the same page, in hindsight, I believe that the lack of proper specialisation was costly in time and energy. That being said, we did delegate certain tasks. My partner worked a lot on the cosmetics, heartbeat sensors and airlock mechanism, while I worked on the projectile mechanism, and lock and key. I also found myself needing to tidy up the Arduino microcontroller and its nest of wires: I had fun soldering an Arduino shield which removed redundant wires, organised the circuits and allowed me to power my launching DC motors with a 12V power source.
. With these solid changes, and aesthetic choices that conveyed embrace for mobile aiming and attention to particular areas of interaction, ‘Loveshot’ was complete.
In your read up until now, if you have questioned a sentence asking yourself “Does this make sense?” then you understand my definition of interactivity and its purpose being world-building. For example, if your answer is No, you may judge my philosophy, my writing ability, your own reading ability or anything else in accordance with your perspective and your worldview will change: there will exist a disconnect somewhere between you and me and this reading experience will not feel as interactive. In communities, this disconnect takes the form of social disconnection, where identity reduces to action then to words and then to thoughts. ‘Loveshot’ aims to bridge a gap between strangers by utilising anonymity in turning thoughts into reality within a community that wants to be connected. According to my definition, ‘Loveshot’ was successful in its alignment with how I expected people to interact with it. We collected many pingpong balls, all of which were positive, containing kind, funny and encouraging messages, and cute drawings. That being said, these results were definitely biased and skewed due to these particular testing conditions. I would not consider ‘Loveshot’ as an item itself very interactive: it launches a pingpong ball when tapped, a simple cause and effect that doesn’t teach us much about anything. However, as a tool in the greater context, a context that will change over time and across space, I do consider it very interactive particularly in the social and psychological fields. This project has demonstrated for me how comparatively small projects are so powerful, being able to open up entrances into unseen dimensions of our world.
Special thanks to Aislynn, Gottfried, Rudy and Kevin.
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