Week 4
“Más que la cara” | link
This is an interactive project that doesn’t really require a hand movement to activate the interaction. 🙂 It is an interactive and augmented face. The camera tracks facial features and identifies points on the face, and generate animations based on the captured image.
This type of program is very common all over the world, I would say. A screen, a camera to capture the face/ user, a set of codes to run the program. I’ve seen something similar in the aquarium that an image of me was taken, and my head got projected onto the screen. It looked like I was under the sea (well, my head was…). What makes this program unique, in my opinion, is its accuracy when capturing facial features, and the variability of the output. From the video, it seems that everyone is getting a different result.
I guess for the “improvement”, I wonder what will happen if the camera can detect users’ emotions, and provide animations based on the emotions? Will that interfere with how we understand certain emotion? Will the machine misunderstand our human feelings?
Although it is a bit unrelated to the topic “interaction”, this project reminds me of the new fashion trend in the AR world. Instead of getting physical clothings, more and more people are purchasing digital outfits. These clothes usually have very futuristic textures and massive volume, and are almost impossible to make in the real world. Clothes/ fashion are expressions of our identity. However, with the development in the digital world, we have more and more ways to express ourselves. 🙂
Week 3
Before I started to read/ watch the materials, when I saw the prompt, whether we still need hands as a part of future interaction, for some unknown reason, I was think about the prostheses and prothetic fashion. Some fake hands can actually help people achieve amazing tasks.
I thought about a blogger who lost her hand because of an accident. Now she’s using a metallic “hand” that captures the EMG signal (Electromyography (EMG) is a technique for recording biomedical electrical signals obtained from the neuromuscular activities, according to wikipedia) in order to form instructions. This case shows the potential of future interaction — utilizing our biological features. In addition to incorporating bio-signals, last week I thought about the case of using eye gaze to activate installations. There are also cases where our body temperature is measured to turn on/ turn off the lightings in the room. (Uhh I forget the company’s name!!) Several thermal sensors (and other sensors, but mainly the thermal ones) are implemented in the room, and the body temperature is measured in the form of a rectangular, so that when you are lying down on the couch, the light can become dimmer itself. In this case, new technology of interaction makes human’s life easier.
In my view, whether hands will remain essential for future interactions largely depends on the intended purpose. As discussed in class, interaction involves our relationship with our surroundings, a process of call and response. The parties involved need not be human, and the forms of interaction can vary widely. However, when the goal is to enhance productivity or improve human performance, human intervention — often through the use of hands — may still be necessary to ensure precision.
On the other hand, a lot of art works or developers have experimented with the possibility of interaction in the future. I hold the opinion that they are proposing concepts, and it will take a long time for these concepts to become realities.
(That goes to another point I really want to explore: the tension between conceptual innovation and practical functionality. A lot of projects intended to provoke thoughts on environmental protections, for example, are not protecting the environment. (In this sense the interaction is between human and the nature/ the environment) In the case of bio-materials, many companies are merely green-washing their products because it might be impossible to mass produce their sustainable concepts, or their products are not durable. As for my own work, I was wondering how to balance the durability of the projects and the presentation of the concept. For example, is it justifiable to sacrifice the durability in order to show the concept?)
⬆️ class notes
