technology – Jayden

Response: Interactive Environment and Experience Design

Timothy Nohe’s presentation on Interactive Environment and Experience Design was unlike any other guest speakers’. It was interesting to listen to him share his experiences in his works and installations. His experiences also made me understand that to make an installation successful, you need more than just a designer, but a team of people from different fields of expertise.

Besides the usual slides that were presented, Timothy also brought along his interactive project to class and allowed us to interact with it. There was a mixer-like equipment connected to a screen and to activate the screen, it was through the means of connecting different jacks to different ports. Every different port connected, it will then produce a one-off pattern on the screen as well as to me, a very ‘sci-fi’ tone. I was very intrigued by the infinite possibilities one could have with this set up and I was actually very interested by the technicalities behind the project.

The project that he showed us in class made me know how advanced technology really is, similar to the Future World field trip. Another take away from his presentation was the minute factors that we tend to overlook when we work on our projects, such as weather-proofing our projects, maintenance issues, and also to ensure that our work does not fail under the heavy interaction from the public.

Trip To Future World @ ArtScience Museum

The trip to Future World by TeamLab at the ArtScience Museum was certainly enriching as it was my first time going for the exhibition. Upon entering the exhibition, I was greeted with an immersive experience through 4D projections and it was definitely eye-opening. I felt like I was being brought into another dimension with the combinations of light and sound.

Moving on to other exhibits, what fascinated me the most would be Sketch Town. TeamLab made use of several technologies which I was really interested in. There were paper with outlines of a car and a house printed on it and the public could use the crayons provided to express their creativity on it. Its just like childhood all over again for me. After which, we could actually scan our drawings and it will be brought in to the huge display of a town, almost in an instant.

Just when I thought that was the end of the experience of this section, I was told that I can use the same drawing I created, scan it, and it would be printed out as a cut-out template and be formed into a 3D model. From 2D to digital and to 3D, this process is to me, the freshest and the most interesting interaction I had in the exhibition.

This trip to the exhibition was an eye-opening experience for me, and through this experience, it would aid me in conceptualizing for the iLight project with a wider perspective as I am aware of the technologies that could actually be implemented into the project, such as incorporating sounds and converting intangible pieces to memorable souvenirs.

Week 4 Response: You Are What You Carry

After reading this chapter and also having to watch his TED talk earlier on in class, I can better understand his point on how technology has benefited us. He has used the three most important things to elaborate several new terminologies which I found was very interesting: Range Of Distribution. This is a very good way to observe a certain culture at the particular place, in terms of security and trust level an individual has to his/her surroundings. In Singapore, there are also different range of distributions at different places. When we are at the coffee shop for a simple meal, we tend to leave our bags at our seat, only carrying our valuable items with us. In contrast, when we are out in town, we do think twice when we want to leave our bags at our seats due to the increased crowd level at town.

Another point to note about this chapter would be the point of reflection. I believe most of us, if not all of us, will tap on our pockets to make sure we brought what we need to bring, pausing for a moment to recall if we have missed out any essential items. These are little things we do often but fail to actually notice them. I feel that as designers we should train and equip ourselves the ‘eye’ to look at the details which other people could not see. This would then in turn make us better designers.

In the later part of the chapter, Chipchase talks about how technology could actually do more inconvenience than convenience. I feel that in this tech-savvy era, we should intelligently tap on technology as a bonus and not relying on technology so much so allowing them to control our lives, eventually.

All in all, within the past years, technology has advanced so quickly, everything is getting a piece of technology infused in them. All that we need would be available in a smartphone. But what if we lose our smartphones, how would we then survive in this world?