Presence-Sense

After a certain point in time, life becomes more location based. The context rules. Living in brownstone brooklyn houses, eating thai food, crossing the church to catch the train, getting used to following patterns. Then moving to another city and carrying on with familiar rituals. There is a certain disconnect with the past people, places and rituals.

Presence-Sense is an attempt to create a connection. It is a series of objects which are used on a day to day basis and provide unobtrusive information about a distant places, people or rituals. A networked lamp prototype is a part of the series. It displays the position of two ships sailing the seas of the world. My two brothers are on board on these two seperate gas tankers.

The information is spatial, continual and subtle and allows for connection without obstructing daily rituals. The overlap and juxtapostion of spaces which are different in all aspects and conditions create an interesting commentary on the space making trends of today.

My interest in contextual and indigenous spaces gave me my first ideas for this project. Continual travel and moving and hence development of a lack of rootedness and sense of belonging to a place made me think about ways to keep in touch. Difficulty in keeping in touch with rituals, places and people who form an important part of my formative years gave me food for thought too.

http://www.interaction.rca.ac.uk/staff/ben/dataclimates_webspace/project_presence/presence_maintext.html
http://tangible.media.mit.edu/projects/

The lamp is still in production stage right now. It looks like a conventional table lamp but projects ships on the ceiling depending upon where the ship is sailing on the face of the earth. The ceiling acts like a global map. Additional projections of water and stars gives the ceiling a feel of a night sky.