Project Description
My inspiration came from an installation where the sound emitting from the back of the mirror distorts the reflected view in the mirror. Here is the Youtube link of that work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLOs6ZTkBQQ
Likewise, at first I wanted to make a pair of glasses or headwear device. The person who wears it can see through the half-transparent sheet, and the sheet will be vibrated by some kind of motor. Ideally, the user can feel the vibration and see the vibrated view at the same time.
Perspective and Context
My project aims at transforming feeling to vision. In Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s work The World of Perception, he asserts that “a work of art is something we perceive” (101). During the whole process, I also discovered different people have different understandings of my work, which is really interesting and inspiring. My project tend to give people a new way to comprehend their surroundings and themselves.
Development & Technical Implementation
At first I was thinking of plastic sheet to be the distorted lens for the user. But I tried several plastic sheets from some stores, they cannot make your view distorted when you shake them. Then when I was scrolling down on Taobao page, there appeared a relevant store that sells double-sided mirror paper. It’s a foldable piece of paper, and it can either function as a mirror or let you see the outside while the people outside won’t see you. So I bought the material after my failed trials of plastics, only 3 days before the deadline.
When I received the material, I discovered it is not transparent enough, it is only like a soft mirror. Making the paper into glass lens would be too dizzy for the user. Instead, I was trying to make it a rounding headwear device.
In the meantime, I was testing the vibration motors I borrowed from the equipment room.
I was thinking that when the mirror is vibrated by the motors, you can see, respondingly, a shaking self of you.
I picked some deserted package boxes from the storage room and cut a hole to stick the paper. I tried different ways to stick the paper, but it works the best when the paper is a little bent. And here is the final work.
When I tested it with my friend, one of them gave me a very interesting feedback: She felt like she was a cellphone when it started to vibrate. And the paper looks like the screen. Maybe that is also a good way to interpret my project, as people can connect the different modalities of perception to a specific object when they experience it.
This is the GitHub link to my coding part. https://github.com/lilyunverwundbar/Kinetic-Light-Project-1
Presentation
I was a bit afraid that people would not get the idea of my project because the effect is not too obvious. My first participant described that he experienced the distorted image of himself when the motor started to vibrate.
But overall, other users thought the effect was not too obvious, which is true. And they thought it might be better to manually vibrate the sheet. And professor also suggested me to polish the appearance of the device. I found these advice really helpful.
Conclusion
The most vital lesson I learned is that try planning beforehand as early as possible. The duration of this project is intense, but I spent two more days thinking of the idea after our proposals in class. I should have done more research to settle down my project idea on the proposal day so that I can have more time testing different materials and changing my plan accordingly.
Second, user testing is important. They will give you various perspectives on your project which you may not notice. And possibly they will give you suggestions on improvement.
The most pitiful thing about my work is that it is not as viable as I thought. And I didn’t have enough time to make the device look better.
Conclusively, leave every step of your project enough time for adjustment, and open to others’ suggestions when you are stuck in the middle.