Experiments in Communication

This bag was created using a hacked toy. I took a ball that blinks in flashy colors when it is slammed, and noticed that the switch was a spring that makes contact to a metal surface to set the blinking lights off. I figured out that the lights will also go off if the spring is touching the metal plate and this contact breaks, so I inverted the switch mechanism so that it will blink when the spring is pulled. Because the blinking lights are red and blue (somewhat resembling a police car), I figured it would make for a good anti-theft device.

Here is how the bag works:

1. Pin flower to yourself (or to something you don't want to get stolen).

2. If someone tries to steal the bag away from you...

3. Alarm will blink!!

Posted by kyveli at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I created a massage shrug, embedding vibrating motors (the kind found in cell phones) into the inside of the shrug (where the shoulderblades would be). The switch is the entire organza shawl that is attached to the shrug.

The switch here is on.

The switch here is off. You can see the conductive threads attached to the motors sticking out the back. When these make contact with the organza (which is connected to the (-) of the battery), the circuit closes and the motors vibrate, giving you a gentle massage.

To make the organza conduct not only lengthwise, but also crosswise, I sewed a narrow strip of conductive fabric perpendicular to the conductive fibers of the organza.
construction detail:

Posted by kyveli at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was fascinated by this article, but find it pretty hard to visualize what the khipus look like, so I looked for photos. They don't really look like what I would expect, plus they look like they would be very hard to read!

Using a physical object to represent language is (or at least should be) in many ways more intuitive than inventing not only an encoding language (system of symbols, i.e. letters), but also a 2-d surface and tool to write these symbols on. I guess if you think of cave drawings as the origin of writing, then it would make sense why man elaborated written expression and invented new 2-d surfaces on which to write on, but i guess what I am trying to say is that I do not find it surprising that there was an attempt to achieve this with three-dimensional objects.

Posted by kyveli at 02:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)