This term, we utilized our research and findings from Super Studio 1 to further explore how streaming media can affect families, in particular families with tweens (children ages 11–15).
Several questions emerged from last term's findings, so we used this term to try and answer those questions by creating projects that we could experiment with inside the homes of two families that we developed a relationship with last term.
There were several questions we wanted to focus on:
1) Can we create a public space within the home that allows conversations and storytelling to emerge between family members? In particular, can our projects give voice to family members who haven't necssarily had a space to voice themselves?
2) How does streaming media affect conversations and physical relationships that stem from family rituals?
3) How can we use an unfamiliar object to foster family members' relationships and communication methods?
4) How can the affordances of streaming media encourage self-reflection as well as instigate change in family structure, in routine behaviors in the home, and in the overall traditional family dynamics?
My Focus: Text Wall
There were 4 projects that came into fruition this term: a dining table where you could have a virtual dinner with another family, a third object that controlled the television, a kitchen sink that controlled streaming feeds in the house, and a text wall that family members could text their messages to. (To read more about all the projects,
visit our blog.).
I focused most of my efforts on the text wall, which developed out of a meager little sketch one evening on one of the white boards in the super studio room.
What if we could design a space that could collect and display messages, thoughts and micro–stories within a family? What would that space look like and how could it function efficiently? Early in the term, I explored how people find ways of confessing thoughts to "safe" places. Confessional booths, holes in walls, private journals...
With those ideas, I wondered how we could provide a safe space for families to project messages and thoughts not normally spoken. At first, it was about creating a wall into which you could speak, or digitize your thoughts through text or photographs. I thought of this crazy wall that could serve as an open confessional space, a photo booth and voice recorder all-in-one. And I wanted it to have a sense of personality that would make a family feel safe.
The idea was placed on the back burner and I thought it would never go beyond this little sketch. But it emerged again a few weeks later into the
text wall!
The main questions that arose for the text wall were:
1) If you change who is empowered to lead family conversation, how does this change the family dynamic and discussion space?
2) How does a public space faciliate unspoken conversations within families?
3) What are the perceptions of a traditional share space and how do these perceptions change with the addition of an activity such as the text wall?
4) What types of connections will families make between texts? Will this create multiple narratives and multiple interpretations of the information of will it create self-reflection?
5) How can designers create alternative family portraits using data driven and created by the user?
6) If you change conversation, will you change the family dynamic? And if you change the family dynamic? And if you change the family dynamic, is there an opportunity space that can foster new and developing relationships between family members?
What came out of a melding of minds between several people, including Luke, Christiane, Julia, Mia and I was the idea of a text wall where, through the use of Twitter, family members could text message through their phone to a designated number which would then appear on their wall through a projector set-up in a common gathering area.
There were several successful outcomes which can be viewed in the images below. Included among our current findings were:
. the text wall became a space of public journaling
. it was a place fo storytelling
. a place of dialogues
. a place which could unveil and highlight personalities
What was the most interesting is how both families ended-up personfying the wall and even naming it "Wall-e" or "Wally."
We are still analyzing the data and will continue the analyzation and personal approaches to our year-long study next term in Super Studio 3.
