A week and a half ago in Designing for Constraints, folks presented their final ideas, while a few of us who elected to continue work on our old projects reported on our progress (and finish I did, more here). I also talked briefly about a half-baked idea to create an interface for programming drums on DAW’s (digital work stations), described thusly:
Programming drums is nothing like playing drums. The biggest problem, for me anyway, is using my feet — doing layers of IDM (intelligent dance music, FYI) drum patterns is pretty much done on a computer keyboard as a rule, and as Amit noted in class, that’s something of a defining mark of the genre — and while I’d love to have a setup that included pads and a kick pedal, Amit’s critique in class was dead-on: this already exists. There’s not really much of a reason for me to go and make my own if I’m not making huge improvements (which I don’t think I would) or breaking the entry price point (which I don’t think I could either).
So. What then?
I spent a week or so really thinking it out — initially, I’d come up with a concept that centered around solar energy, and had something resembling an idea. I’d wanted to work on a big installation that captured energy throughout the day, and then in one form or another provided a big light display at night. However, I ran into a few big issues in that (A) solar cells provide so very little efficiencies for their size, (B) are rather expensive, but mostly (C) I NEED TO STOP MAKING PROJECTS BASED ON BLINKY LIGHTS!!!
So, after much deliberating, whimpering, and a few pots of coffee, I started thinking about Amit’s advice — I tried to analyze what I really wanted from this class, and what I hoped to explore most. I’d been particularly focused on exploring the concepts that take me the furthest out of my comfort zone, and really put me in a place that’s new and painful; makes me a bit awkward.
What I finally started thinking about was silence. The thing that both thrills and frustrates me most about this city is the constant noise, both on the street and in my private life. It’s taxis and people and subwoofers and construction, but it’s also the devices that I let invade and ruin my life (cell phone, stereo, TV, laptop, etc). I’d like to really explore the creation of silence — what comes to mind is a big volume knob that just turns down the volume of EVERYTHING around it. Ideally, I’d like to make a “real” one that actually sends infrared signals to shut off devices, but for now, faking it would work. I think that it would really lend itself to user testing, and really make the statement/cause the introspection that I want to get across.
I’d thought about noise-canceling waves (much like in the myriad headphones on the market), and toyed briefly with the concept of a Faraday-cage-like situation, but what I think might be best is to set this knob up like a big universal remote control, and have it broadcast volume-down codes for as many devices at once as I can. I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but that’d be a start. I’d LOVE to explore the latter concepts a lot more if there’s time — my ultimate concept is really around creating a completely “dead” space — forcing detachment and silence by shutting us off from the outside, but I think the knob may be a start (and much easier to implement).
The “faking” I talked about would, instead of actually doing what I’d just described above, have a bunch of devices pre-set to respond to the knob. I.e. wire up (either literally or wirelessly) a stereo, a cell phone, a TV, etc., to respond to this one volume knob. In terms of the user experience, I don’t think that would change anything much.
But I’m sure I’m missing something big as well here. Killing off sound is nice. But light? Environmental factors? There’s a lot to cover, but I feel like I may have finally hit on something worth doing. Or so I hope, anyway.
And now, research…
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