Experimental Project
Expressive Objects
Exploration in emotion expression without the use of screens for inanimate objects
Product Design
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Futures Design
Summary
This project was a three-week course lead by our faculty Shobhan where we delved into a ‘what if’ question - How could machines express their emotions to humans with sensory or tactile movements and materials i.e, vibrations, textures, sounds, light, etc. in a measure to reduce the urge to strap-on a screen.
Tools & Methods
Methods: Exploratory research, Videography, Photography, Prototyping
Tools: PremierPro, Cinema4D, Illustrator
Team
Designer
Primary research with class of 20
My Role
The primary and secondary research was conducted by the whole class of 20 designers. With this collective knowledge, we branched into our own individual projects.
Duration
November 2018 - December 2018
Engage & Observe
Introduction
Found Object Research
Research & Prototype
Emotion Expression in Objects
Rapid Prototyping
Theory & Application
Emotion Mapping Chart
Product Prototyping
Testing & Iteration
Exhibit & Feedback
Class Exhibition
Feedback Collection
Engage & Observe
Project Goals
Understand how emotions are formed, communicated and perceived
Create an object that emotes through it's physical parts instead of an added on screen
We started by understanding how emotion were captured in other mediums specially animation to see how inanimate objects were animated without a ‘face’
Animation is a captivating and ever-evolving art form that has the power to let objects emote through their actions and movements.
Behind the magic of animated films and videos lie the "12 Principles of Animation" a set of guidelines that have been the cornerstone of animation since their introduction by Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston in their 1981 book, "The Illusion of Life" These principles are the building blocks of animation, allowing artists to breathe life into characters and create fluid, engaging motion.
Media Reference: https://the12principles.tumblr.com/
Further research included found objects that seemed expressive based on their appearance or movement. E.g., a hairdryer that is perceived to be aggressive, how can a tape show different emotions
Through the initial introduction and discussions, we started creating a map and common understanding of how we humanize objects.
Class discussion on objectification of humans and humanising of objects
Research & Prototype
After this initial round of introduction and discussion, we delved deeper into discovering emotions in inanimate objects by choosing a found object that expresses emotion and then creating our own object to identify how it would emote different feelings
Video 1: Created object showing emotions through different parts
Video 2: A disk that dislikes being controlled by a human
Theory & Application
After our insights from the hands on research we collected the work from the whole class and found patterns and common parameters we could chart.
We then charted the emotions to their type of speed, duration, direction and quality of a movement to create a ‘framework of expressions’. This was tested with simple objects like a sphere, vibrating phone and a light
Initial emotion charting
Expanded emotional charting based on primary found object research and created objects prototypes
Most of our world is taken over by smart devices and the idea was to have an interactive object that communicates through gestures or movements.
Emotion could be represented by movement, color, speed, light, etc. So I started ideating a replacement for a smart speaker that would react depending on the situation or given commands
Existing smart devices that communicate with humans by various movements and lights
Sketches and ideation of the communicative object
The prototype was made using teak wood as that was the available material. This was created using a late machine to achieve the cylindrical shape.
The first outer shell was created for testing purposes and then a sleek version was created as a final prototype
Then we moved into the inner body of the object which consisted of a motor to rotate the top and all the electronics would be hidden under the exhibiting podium through a small hole made at the bottom of the object.
Working with the Arduino to program the rotations according to the emotions took some trial and error to get the speed and movement correct.
Motor connected to an Arduino board programmed to move according to the graphed emotions
Inner motor for rotation of the object
Initial prototype with stop motion
Exhibit & Feedback
The final prototype that was exhibited was coded for three different speeds of movement to portray excited, anger, sadness
The culmination of this project was a public class exhibition at Rangoli station in Bangalore.
We weren’t designing useful objects : we were demonstrating the potential of different modes of communication and urging designers to leverage this potential while building interactive machines.
Because of this, we had two outcomes from our exhibition:
to show the world there are multiple ways to interact with objects and two,
to test if our framework-driven objects were perceived expressive in the way we had hoped
Visitors were shown the movements of the object and then told to identify the emotion.
Here we identified that some words like ‘anger’, ‘disgust’ or ‘sadness’ may not be suitable for describing machine expressions; instead, we could describe the state and behaviour of machines in terms of their energies: low, high, intensely transmitted, conserved, directed or not, etc.
Learnings
Physical objects stimulate us in ways that digital interfaces cannot, through physicality, presence, and craft. This suggests that tactile and sensory elements are essential in creating emotionally expressive objects. Throughout the exhibit, users were intrigued to identify emotions through just the movements. This proved to cross barriers such as language as well.
Through this project, we explored our boundaries of emotion to understand varying ways emotions can be expressed on future products
Note
This project was done as a part of a month long ‘interim’ class at Srishti Institute of Art, Design & Technology. It was guided by Sobhan and his previous work in the field. More information on the other projects in this class can be found here
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