Animism, by definition, is the attribution of spiritual qualities in inanimate objects. For my project, animism is used as a design metaphor to develop expressive interactions that create dialogues between people and objects.
As technology becomes increasingly intelligent and pervasive in the physical context of daily life, it is crucial toconsider the design of technological artifacts to develop new interaction paradigms that can expandtechnological capabilities, shape behaviors, establish new practices, and broaden our worldview.
Animism, as a design metaphor, can be powerful in creating expressive, affective, and empathetic interactions with interxactive objects. Through the use of behavioral, physical, andsocial metaphors, an animistic object can communicate in a more nuanced way with its changing form andbehavior within a given context.
An animistic object can connect in multi-sensorial ways to provide an individual andidiosyncratic experience, which can afford one to construct new meanings with their surrounding objects and re-formtheir relationship with them.
Animistic qualities in things can shape our interaction with things to be more nuanced and subtle. As interactive objects start to communicatemore dynamically and proactively, animism as a themeopens up potentials in designing richer engagements between human and objects through expressive forms,behaviors, and interaction modalities.
Assuming that the chair is a living organism, as the user sits for an increasing amount of time, the physiological fatigue value experienced by the chair gradually increases and gradually qualitatively changes into an uncontrollable psychological burden.when sitting for a long time becomes behavioral inertia, the chair will also produce inertia fatigue, This emotional evolution process is similar to the emotional changes of human procrastination.
The Feeling wheel shows the six most dominant human emotions, I summarized stages of emotional change in the chair:
I chose a chair as the metaphor, as it has a unique level of interaction that not only allows a physical connection to its user but also triggers an emotional response. The development status of the object proposed by Bruce Sterling was linked to the evolution of chairs throughout history and a typical example of a chair for each development stage of the object was found. According to Charlotte and Peter , ‘the chair reveals not only the visions of its creator but also mirrors the wider cultural context of the era in which it arose’.
Nonverbal communication cues play a crucial role in human-nonhuman communication. I was interested in how an object can start to communicate its state through its body. I asked each participant to illustrate their expression of negative emotions through different bodily movements and postures. Additionally, I inquired about their self-definition in two distinct personality states: enthusiasm, sensitivity, and logical reasoning.
Based on the expression and imagination of 75 participants' body movements in depression and anger, referring to the mechanical movement state of the 4D dynamic driving simulator, and taking into account the safety and feasibility of the movement, I summarized five types of chair dynamics that can be used perform actions and rank them from mild to strong according to their intensity.
The design draws the shape of butterflies in nature as design inspiration. Butterflies endow objects with "smart" and "futuristic" qualities. The back and seat of the chair are gradually transformed from the basic shape of a butterfly, simulating the wings of a butterfly, and at the same time adapting to the natural angle of the human pelvis, conforming to the ergonomic scale. The mechanical structure of the legs of the chair simulates the stretching dynamics of butterflies, obtaining a different aesthetic feeling as well as creating a vivid visual effect.
Stationary behaviour lasting for more than one hour is considered sedentary. Therefore, the program time is set to 50 minutes.
The program refers to the time management method of the Pomodoro Clock, adopts a 30-minute work and a 5-minute interval behavior pattern, and divides the abstract source of anxiety into exact measure of productivity.
A way of designing interactions that are not predictable or comforting, but that instead throw the user off-balance and confound their expectations. But why should this be goal? After all we like it when our objects-devices-companions behave as they should…However, the creative potential opened by disruptive behaviour should not be underestimate as it can trigger different response based on more intuitive forms of apprehension, and ultimately generate a more creative environment.
