Anthropomorphisms is one part of my Thesis where I investigate the relationship between a single
person and his/her gadget / electronic object (from the printer, to the toaster) in the domestic space.

I asked 66 people if they experienced moodiness with their electronic objects, or even attitude problems.

Your Ipod on shuffle only plays you the most awful songs you own; your printer just not responding;
your toaster not able to spit out the toast in time and once again it is burned; the vending machine eats
your money but no candy in return, your car not starting...

1. Write a few sentences about your experience and how you deal with it — little details woul be
great. (Do you name it, pat it, ignore it, slam it against the wall, give it a time out, buy it a friend,
take it on a walk...)

Example: My printer only sometimes works. It starts great and then it makes a loud noise and goes to
sleep. When I brought it to a repair shop they tested it for days and it worked perfectly. Back at home the
printer worked great, seemed like it just needed some time outside the house, but after a few days it just
started acting up again. It is very temperamental, so now I named him Tony, (I once had a crush on Tony
but he was just out of control moody and ... my printer kind of reminds me of him)

 

Here are a few examples of the stories I received:

One of the two lights in our bedroom only turns on when it wants to: sometimes it will be months before
it suddenly allows us to turn it on for a few bright days before it then retreats back into hibernation.
We’ve tried the conventional replacement of the bulb and jiggling of the fixture to no avail. When those
methods failed we took to treating the light like a shy friend that just needs some space. Ultimately,
we found that kind words and the occasional rub of the bulb allow us to have those few days of light.

I seem to believe that each of my cars has been a conscious, sentient being. My first vehicle, an 80s
Honda Civic, was horribly mistreated by my father, so it was always rather edgy. I tend to take pretty
good care of my cars, and so they come to appreciate, perhaps even care about me. My last car, a
2001 Toyota, was totaled in an accident in which I was not at fault. I was very distraught when I had
to say “goodbye” to it.

Okay.
I don’t trust my alarm clock. It was probably my fault, but I still don’t trust it. I missed an alarm one time
and swore that I put the alarm on the night before. It made me late to class. I also don’t like the “snooze”
button on my alarm clock because the more times it goes off, the more it pisses me off. It makes me
want to punch it. Again, that’s my fault because it’s not the clock that has to wake up — it’s me. But
I still appreciate my clock.

 

The respond was great and I was facing the challenge to work with the stories but respect the story tellers.
I tried a few different things: animate the scenarios, transcribed some of the stories, have people read
them, take photos of they were talking about...
... I attached a tiny spy cam to the objects. Making short movie clips that are out of the perspective of
objects and for the second version had my computer read the stories to me.

click here to see the result

Further investigations to tackle:

- physical interaction between user and object
- from the perspective of the user
- from the perspective of the viewer
- does the domestic space / the environment have anything to do with the temper of the object
- do your object communicate with each other (I had one person telling me that she thinks her oven
  talks to the microwave and the smog alarm. The microwave makes sparks because the oven
  wants her food again...)
- electronic objects having a mind of their own - maybe they are controlling you
- how about them begin jealous of each other, the airbook mac replacing the powerbook....
- and so on...