Tuesday, 9 February 2010
when sound changed the world
Flora Arbuthnott
Lottie Burnley
Lizzie Brotherston
In a world where old people have taken control of society, no young person is safe.
By using irritating high frequency sounds which only ‘Youths’ can here, the old have banished the young to the fringes of the cities.
Action needs to be taken.
The ‘Youths’ have begun to use this noise to their advantage, communicating without the old people’s knowledge.
By using this high frequency whistle the young can regain control.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/content/articles/2006/04/04/mosquito_sound_wave_feature.shtml
ELEVATOR PITCH
Elevator pitch is an experimental concept, where we changed lift movement to correspond to the volume of noise made inside it. This contrasted awkward silences with users working together: singing, screaming, shouting or anything loud to reach different floors.
To show this visually we redesigned the lift buttons as a game, inspired by 'fairground hammers' lightign up according to the level reached. Users use existing buttons to indicate their direction of travel; then thehigher the volume the further and faster you go. Traditional lifts are silent adn awkward. Elevator pitch is not.
by Vana, Fi, Craig, Nathan
Thanks to all the screamers!
Silence is Golden
We were asked to consider 'Soundscapes' and design an interaction for this topic. Our group consisted of Michael Walker, Phoebe Batham and Philip Blaikie.
We considered silence in a soundscape, and the role that silence could play in the future. Out of this came a lot of talk of noise cancellation, and from there we decided to go down the rather fun route of 'shutting things and people up'.
Taking the phrase silence is golden, far into the future when technologies like nonotechnology will exist in smart fabrics, and possibly in paint form . We decided to use said 'technology' and made the concept of noise cancelling paint. Paint it on something and the sound will be recorded, the inverse sound played, and silence produced. Some might call it far fetched, we prefer 'advanced' but the communication of the concept is more important than the technology itself.
We storyboarded the prototype before putting it together quickly on small handy cam, and edited later.
You may notice the slight use of humour, and direct attack on the enigma that is 'She not Fi'.
Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotechnology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_noise_control
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_fabrics
Methods For Collective Noise
above is an example of collective noise making
through collaboration participants build upon the volume
collective noise is used as a means to reach a common goal
( click ' Methods For Collective Noise ' )
Initial Research - The Inevitable Mind Maps
The Music Self
The Music Self is an interactive device linking the subtleties of musical harmonies to the experience of choosing coffee. This alters the user’s perception of the packaged product into a sensual interaction reminiscent of that of the actual tasting of the coffee.
The device works using a combination of weight and proximity sensors. As the product is lifted from the shelf a built in weight sensor triggers the melody of a particular instrument to play, each is chosen to represent the unique flavor of the selected coffee. This is played from a set of speakers built into the shelf unit. The proximity sensor functions using a signal from a magnetic tag contained within the packaging of the coffee. This can detect if the product has left the vicinity of the shelf or if it has entered the users shopping basket or trolley, causing the music to stop.
Give a tune to your coffee...
Links
Proximity Sensor Information - http://www.bik.com/
Weight Sensor Information - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weighing_scale
Effects of Noise on People
A crowd, at a football match for example, is another situation where people are close together but perhaps don't communicate with one another. The one thing they have in common with the surrounding people is the support of a team and will make noises and celebrate together when their team scores. It's just another scenario where people communicate through sounds rather than verbally or physically.
Monday, 8 February 2010
Diet+ Dinner Party
Diet+ is a scanning device that can recognize different diets and help you choose food that suits the selected option. It’s very user friendly and simple. You select a diet by pressing the buttons on the touch screen and attach Diet+ onto your shopping trolley or basket and start choosing the food. The screen shows and sounds as to whether the food complies with the diet preference. Diet+ is especially useful when shopping for other people who have special dietary needs. It saves you from reading the nutritional information and makes sure you don’t select wrong or potentially dangerous products. The program also allows you to customize your diet.
Monday, 1 February 2010
Changing sounds in everyday tasks
Toast and Jam from Mary Huang on Vimeo.
Some of the work by Jen from last year who is now in Copenhagen...really interesting, its basically looking at human reactions to changing sounds in eveyday tasks so figured it was quite related!
The Third & The Seventh
The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.
Possibly slighly off topic, but an amazing piece of video and sound compsition. hopefully it can act as some inspiration.
anyways. check it out!!
Proof that birds are secretly composers
Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.
A normal person sees these birds perched on electrical wires and worries about getting crapped on. Jarbas Agnelli looks at them and sees musical notes. Maybe he’s smarter than the rest of us because the melody is utterly oh-so-sweet-that-I-could-doze-off-right-now.