The actual writing-up aspect of the project has probably been the most useful part of the exercise because it has forced to filter down what I have resaerched to only the most useful parts. As I was writing the report it just suddenly became clear that the best way to explain the key aspects of phatic technologies was just to take the best examples and essentially what they do well. As obvious as it sunds this just didn’t occur before I started writing up.

Unfortunately at the last minute I had to scale back the actual written part of the research project. It wasn’t viable to do all that I wanted to within just 1500 words so I concentrated on just introducing the concept of phatic comunication and ubiquitous computing. I have then used three major academic works as case studies to highlight some key design considerations for phatic interfaces. During the presentation however I will go onto speak of the my other research.

Over the past few days I have been focused on turning my research into phatic communication, tangible interfaces and technologies and projects associated with these things into a research project that is going to really benefit me as oppsed to just being an extra burden. To do this I had to really assess what aspects of the relationship into these two things am I interested in finding out about and what will ne most beneficial for the project and dissertation.

It has become clear to me over the past few weeks that my main interest lies in subtle and intimate communication, and particularly how in modern life it is more important than ever for communication technologies to allow people to communicate like this over large distances but how at present they lack the ability to do this.

I have therefore changed the focus of this research project from a study of just tangible interfaces to a study of phatic technology in general. This I see as having two aspects, one aspect is the development of tangible interfaces and new forms of communication to deal with this issue. The other aspect is looking at how people cope now, how people use or perhaps modify their existing communication devices to make the connection more personal or intimate. This has given me an opportunity to conduct some primary research into peoples existing behaviour.

Over the past few days I have been investigating the major developments in tangible interfaces used for developed for “phatic communication”. This has been quite successful, certainly from an academic standpoint, though I have found it difficult to ascertain whether there have been any major developments in the commercial sector, though I think its doubtful as this is still a very experimental field. This however could be an opportunity for some primary research to find this out…

In researching the major bits of work done in this area I started with the most recent example and what sparked my original interest in tangible media - Connectibles! I was interested in where the creator Jeevan James Kalanithi, got the inspiration for this project and worked backwards from there really.

The major developments that I have discovered so far are:

1997: InTouch - Scott Brave & Andrew Dahley (MIT - tangible bits)

2001: LumiTouch - Angela Chang, Brad Koerner, Benjamin Resner & XingChen Wang (MIT - tangible bits)

2003: GustBowl - Dennis, Pieter, Marataan (Delft University - Netherlands)

2003: SynchroMate - Martin Gibbs, Steve Howard, Frank Vetere, Marcus Bunyan (Uni Melbourne)

2006: LoversCups - Chia-Hsun Jackie Lee and Hyemin Chung (MIT)

2007: Connectibles - Jeevan James Kalanithi (MIT Tangible Bits)

Unsurprisingly the tangible bits department at the MIT media lab headed up by Hiroshi Ishii features strongly on this list.

Another discovery though this research focusing on inspiration for tangible interfaces already out there was that of the so called “father of Ubiquitous Computer” Mark Weiser and his seminal paper “The computer for the 21st century” where a world beyond the screen was first realised

Over the past few days I have been researching tangible interfaces with particular reference to the different functions they can perform.

What has become apparent is that the majority of work in this area, especially in a commercial areana has been focused in two areas; personal support, which could be location based, i.e. navigation systems or organisational focused eg. personal planners.
However I have found that one of the most exciting (for me at least) areas of research in this area are those systems using “phatic” technologies. Essentially these are products and systems created to enhance phatic communication (which can be classified as any non-essential communication that people use to express friendship, love or affection).

I would very much like to explore this aspect of communication within tangible interfaces as this id definietly something I would like to focus on in the major project. Therefore I have decided to research the major developments within this field for this units research project to give myself a better view of what has already been done in this field and what kind of technologies they have used.

I felt I made some good progress with my own research planning today. Last week during the 20 minute research exercises we were doing in class I was feeling quite apathetic towards it, in the sense that I felt I partly knew the outcome - that google was an inefficient way of searching and that the conclusions I would reach in such a short time span wouldn’t be worth my time.

However today my partner really thought about our search process, we identified the different ways the search criteria (history of sight based interactive installations) could be interpreted, i.e. what do we mean bight, does this mean that sight has to cause interaction or will it just involve the sight of the viewer, or even the sight of the computer. Also by history, do we mean the history in terms of how have technology and processes changed r are we talking more literally about a timeline. It was good to go though these steps before we did any type of search.

To actually search we identified a piece of work (by Jochim Sauter - deviewer) that is quite a famous and likely early piece that uses eye-tracking technology that we looked for as a starting point. We then searched for influences for and by this work and went from there. Seemed to prove quite effective.

Also I was introduced to google scholar… I can’t believe I didn’t know about it before!

Tomorrow I start research into “the limitaions of screen based culture” for real, or at least I start work on narrowing down that title.

Loving the work of john maeda
at the moment. His book maeda@media is full of beautiful, intricate yet simplistic and inspring images. It really makes me think how we should be using computers and the tools it brings, we should be experimenting with the tools and creating images and designs that are true to the nature of the medium… not just following the rule book. I have been planning on exploring the possibilities of actionscript art for a while and the book is proving a big motivator… just need to hone my actionscript skills!

Also reading the book, it has really introduced me to the work and philosophy of the legenndary graphic designer Paul Rand. He was so ahead of his time and his view of simplicity in design, something that Maeda has continued and brought into more of technology based applications is certainly something I would like to incorporate into my upcoming project and future work.

Today was our first day in Unit 2.3 proper (yesterday - was just a bit of a stress - to be expected when forming groups). The theme of the day was based around managing research, and to be fair this is somewhere where I possibly lack certain skills or at least motivation so was there were some interesting points to take from the day. Not least my discovery that I really find google a terrible and inefficient way of searching for information.

However the most enlightening thing that I heard today was being told that us MAIM guys are terribly insular. We have our own studio and are a reasonably friendly bunch so I think we tend to comfortable in our own 4 walls. It really made me think, there’s a whole city of learning out there so I need to get out more!

In a similar vein the idea of getting out there and talking to people in industry - doing some primary research, getting contacts etc. I realised how daunting yet essential this was. i realised how institutionalised I have become without knowing it, something that would have been obvious a year ago now seems very hard.

• Tagging Goes Semantic With Zigtag
  (tags: semantic tagging)
• Maeda’s SIMPLICITY: a… ah … ATCHOO! Gestaltung!
  (tags: maeda simplicity design)

• The Media Lab
  (tags: research mit)
• Connectibles!
  (tags: social MIT tangible)

Exploring possibilities for major projects I think a really interesting area of study is taking technology away from the screen and into our hands. It seems that nearly all of the advancements in technolgy that either make our lives easier, enhance our social lives or simply improve communication between us and our peers are screen based - is there not a whole world outside this?

There is a lot of work done in this area, notably Durrell Bishop - see Designing Interactions book and of course Gillian Crampton Smith with the marble ball answering machine.

A major center for tangible media that I need to explore more is the tangible media group at the MIT media lab. One project in particular that I find very interesting is connectibles!. I think a lot of developments in the web, the social network phenomenon for example is perhaps trying to substitute aspects of life that we have lost in the modern age. For example there are more people living by themselves than ever before, lonelyness and depression are widespread. The general consensus is that this is ok- we are more connected than ever, we are all permanently plugged into a worldwide network of friends, right now i can see in the bottom right corner of my screen “you have 12 friends online”. But can I touch these people, are they really my friends, i mean is the whole concept of having “180 friends” (or 600 in the case of some people I know friends) online at any one point beneficial to us.

Without wanting to sound like an uber-materialist, I question whether modern technology by taking away physicality has devalued what we hold dear - be that music, as a result of the ipod, our photographs or even your relationships with people as a result of facebook.

That is why I think the concept of connectibles is so interesting, it is bringing things full circle it is acknowledging that part of our emotional attachment to things - both material and our relationships with other people rely on a physicality that is currently lacking.Tangib