The idea of a world where every object has a life of their own has been thriving over the years not only in science fiction novels, but also in numerous fantasy literatures. My Sound Toy Project is focused on exploring the behaviors of electronic machineries in a hypothetic world where things can mediate communications by themselves. One of the interesting aspects of this investigation is that it is based on the idea of learning possible ways to engage with objects that exist as life forms and have unique personality. In a world where machineries become more sophisticated, people and objects would be sharing their surroundings and put effort to stay in harmony. My Sound Toy Project is an application in the future for people who are required to understand how to interact with alive objects. On the bottom of the media file, simple tasks would appear in text and enable the user to learn how the three dots engage with one another. As the user accomplishes one task the stage would clear and more complicated task would appear. By using code, I had each of the three dots to behave in certain way and have unique personality. There is the controller, attention seeker, and a timid one. Some of the dots are friends with one another. Others may not get along. Try and find out! Users may learn about these traits and eventually create an ambiguous effect while engaging with the dots.
The prototype was a great experimentation of generating new behaviors through interaction. By using screen based media, I had less technical constraints which provided an opportunity to liberate my thoughts and push the experiment as far as possible. Next step of this whole exploration would be delivering the screen based interaction system to tangible environment.
Making
-After collecting articles about types of characteristics, I broke them down into three categories.
-I also recorded random sounds from my surroundings and changed pitches so that they would have an abstract tone.
-Then I grouped the sounds according to the three categories of the characteristics I have made.
-By using Flash Action Script, I visualized the behaviors of the three characteristics with movie clips and embedded sounds to them.
-After user testing, I added new behaviors, sounds, and interactions. If they didn’t work or match, I started from the beginning.
-The goal of this process was to understand interactions between objects and create as much behaviors as possible.
-For the final user testing, I had my Sound Toy media piece linked to my lab top through network. I would type down the task and a user would play with my application.
(I used Ipod live-view screen capture so that the game could be played with an I phone. It is also possible to use any computational device with wireless communication)
How To Play
Move your mouse on top of the SWF file. A small circle would be attached to the mouse cursor location and the cursor would become invisible. Drag and drop the three big circles and make them interact with one another
