INTERACTION DESIGN ::Concept + Execution::
With-Within
The design concept developed from the relation OBJECT-SUBJECT: being with or being within. Tangibility starts from the consciousness of your own self, and its relation with what surrounds you. WHAT you are and WHERE you are, determine each other.
We defined tangibility with the metaphor of CARESSING A CAT. First you feel its fur, the force between the hand and the cat is almost none as you go through the thin hair. This is a transition between the air and the cat object, where you feel it but still not really touch it. As you go deeper and start feeling the skin, you find a stronger force opposing your hand. Now your hand is immerged in the fur and you grab the cat object. You can pull it, move it, push it… You can now interact in a more concrete way. Tangibility is a matter of FORCES interaction. So, if you push more on the cat you will start filling the sharpness of the bones, you trespass the limit of your skins and feel what is beyond the limit. This interaction is more intimate and connotes a more emotional relation. The cat might start purring.
This concept is not only applicable to touch sense. The human brain receives the same kind of information form any of the senses. This means that the signal that is transported by the nerves is the same for any of the senses. It’s the location of the input what determines if the brain interprets it as touch, sight, taste, smell or sound input. So, the intensity in the force of the input determines this immersion process. Also, the inputs can mix together as the senses can perceived at the same time and intensify the experience.
Execution
For the design execution, we want to recall this feeling of immersion, going from BEING WITH to BEING WITHIN. This can be achieved using all the body senses, using sounds, colors, smells and textures that represent different forces the person will feel and trespass as the experience grows in intensity.
The Body, the Dancer.
We worked with a professional dancer to explore this concept of forces and immersion. She performed a dance divided in three stages. Each stage had a different context that altered and define the body movements. First the dancer danced as she was water. Second she danced as honey, an third as if she was wood. This body expression could later be used to define the body behaviors we wanted, in order to take the visitor form one stage to the other, using different mediums such as sounds, colors, smells and textures.