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Curious Mailbox
New Ecology of Things, 2011
Instructor: Phil van Allen
Our relationship to technological devices are becoming increasingly personal. The phone that we carry stores data of our personal contacts of who we know, who we talk to the most, and sometimes it can even be utilize to block the ones we do not wish to talk to. The data which stores music files in mp3 devices indicates our personal tastes in music, organized in a fashion that can be easily applied in our daily activities. What is stored in our technological devices depicts who we are as a person. In that sense, technological devices knows us best of who we are, yet, does not hold any humanly entity nor a spirit.
This project explores Animism within the tension between what it reveal about us through types of data stored in the technological devices and how a human-like personality implemented in a technological devices can create new relationship we have with devices currently.
What if a mailbox device serves to react to types of emails you send or receive? What if it has curious and nosy personality of going through your emails and pretends to know everything about you? How would such device create new meanings and relationship towards the way we perceive technological devices?
I chose to explore this idea through Animism by giving email box which has no physical entity by giving a physical form of technological body that exists only to function to give emotional responses based on it's genetic personality.
Arduino, Adobe Flash, potentiometer and
NET Lab Toolkit were used to create this project.
Special thanks to Justin Gier who helped prototyping LED matrix.
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Behaviors:
PROCESS & REFLECTION
Final Concept:
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 some of the qualities you find in a physical mail  some of the characteristics of mail you receive at door and mailbox  give a physical entity to an email box  email box that knows everything about you
Earlier Concept:
My earlier concept approaches were about prolonging a process of cooking by applying Animism on cooking objects.
Challenged by the reading on Kenya Hara's essay on how some of the implications that current marketing back by technology injects
unconscious desire towards idleness where it causes people to
desire to consume instantaneous and convenient products. I was interested in how Animism can play a role in creating an engaging and enjoyable
moments that are eliminated by the convenience of the technology such as in cooking. Another approach which led to my final iteration of this project was
creating an email eco-system. By applying 'dove' as a symbol of delivering a message, I was interested to see how Animism can play a role in facilitating email information design in a poetic approach. I realized that although having a productive email eco-system which displays your email activity on a tree was still too practical approach in applying Animism as well as the behavior is too passive -- does not have enough human like intension.
Marketing is the business of scanning and analyzing the various aspects of peoples' desires. And these aren't only positive desires,
but also the unconscious desire towards idleness: slacking off. In convenience stores and supermarkets, products are in constant competition.
Only those that sell survive. The development of POS technology has spurred this trend. Not long ago, people would buy roasted coffee beans
at a shop, grind them with a coffee mill at home and percolate it through a flannel bag. This is now a rare scene, thanks to the spread
of electric coffee makes. But today people are too lazy even to make coffee with these. There's been a gradual increase of disposable single-use
"cassette-type" coffee products. Basically, consumers unknowingly move in whatever direction allows them to lead an idle life. We can't always
claim that everything that's convenient is no good, but certainly the human tendency to slack off has intensified remarkably, due to marketing
back by technology. -The Progress of Technology and the Deterioration of the Senses, Designing Design, Kenya Hara
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MAKING
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 First prototype using small servo and make controller  Second iteration of prototype  Third iteration of prototype with LED matrix inserted  LED matrix setup  LED matrix setup  LED matrix setup  LED matrix face expression grid sketch  Fourth iteration of prototype  Templates for final prototype  Final working prototype
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