Carol Chen, Zhe Wang
When you sit in a chair, does the chair fit you, or do you conform to the chair?
Description
This project inverts your relationship with a chair, and invites you to invent new ways to interact with a chair. In trying to “please” the chair by sitting in a way that conforms to its own rules, we lose control of our own bodies. The chair shapes our body, instead of serving our body. On top that, we want the participants to get silly, awkward, and be entertained by their weird poses and the absurdity of this inverted relationship.
The interaction starts when participants see this chair waving its two hands from a distance. They come close and learn that they can only make it quiet and obedient like a normal chair by sitting on it and conforming to its own rules. The participant needs to cover the flashing spots on the chair, but at the same time avoid the non-flashing spots. The arrangement of the flashing and non-flashing spots is contradicting the natural human sitting pose, and forces people to twist their bodies, stretch their limbs, and completely lose control of their own body to make the chair quiet. Once they finally made the chair happy, it's quite satisfying, but after a few seconds it will change its rules and require you to sit by a new set of rules.
Classes
Introduction to Physical Computing, Introduction to Physical Computing