Interaction

Untitled from Hsiang Ju Hung on Vimeo.

A working and updated prototype.

Prototype

I am making an interactive installation to present the ideal mode of human connection and social interaction by taking doors as a metaphor of access from one's mind to another's.
By its participants closing and opening doors, I would like to signify that doors of minds must be open for a person to have connection with another. And by switching the perspective, I want to indicate the importance of seeing from other’s point of view.

An ideal human connection is constructed by two open minds that can understand each other, which is hard to get and maintain in reality. It is why I would like to create a piece demonstrating daily human connection with ideal interaction to make people think and to analyze how they react to it.

Main concept:

• Doors = access to one's mind

• True human connection = mental connection

• The ideal mental connection = two (minds)doors open at the same time. (Self-enclosure + social exchange theory)
  

" The more you want to know another, the more you have to show and share with."

• The ideal social interaction needs people have more understanding of each other.

Video mode switches to real-time video = subjective becomes objective = seeing how others see you.


Fallowing sketch is the plan for the door located on 10th floor.





Potentiomater + Openframework from Hsiang Ju Hung on Vimeo.



Small Model of my installation from Hsiang Ju Hung on Vimeo.

Next :

1. To modify the code to make doors' angle match each other
2. To make preset video switch to real-time video from camera randomly.
3. Shoot more footages.
   

Question:
1. How to make users know this is about human connection ?
2. What kind of content will make the theme more obvious?
3. What can users take away from my piece? ( memory of experiencing it??)
4. How can I make this into a piece that users can interact with real users(skype?? is is too complex??)?

Concept+Scenario updated

Concept/
I am making an interactive installation about human connection through doors opening and closing.

A video of different people opening and closing a door would play simultaneously to user's opening and closing a physical door at the end of a fake doorway behind it. Every time a user open the door, he/she will meet a person acting simultaneously in front of him/her. The more he opens the door, the more he/she can see the other. As human daily interaction, the more people want to know others, the more they have to show and share with. I try to connect people and make people think about interpersonal relationship through this simple and common behavior.

Scenario/
Jude is a cdt student walking on the way to the lab on 10th floor as usual. When he passes by the door at the end of a hall way, he hears knocking sounds from it and gets surprised. He turns back to the door and finds there is a door viewer on it. He looks around but dose not see anyone around. Then the door knocks again. So he peeks into the door viewer to see what is making the noise. Unexpectedly, there is a woman looking at him very closely, which makes him shocked. Although it is a little creepy to him, he believes that it must be someone playing tricks and testing sensors behind the door.


Then he tries to open the door to see what's behind it. However, when he opens the door, he sees a hall way leading to another projected door which is opening by the woman. He looks at her looking at him. She waves toward him and keeps looking at his way. Jude feels so strange to have a stranger looking at each other for a while although she is not a real person. But he still waves back to see if something will happen like other motion detecting pieces. But the woman is just looking at him. Then he finds that when he moves the door, the woman also moves hers. He closes the door and peeks through the crack. The woman also peeks over there simutaneously. Therefore, he decides to close the door and open again. However, there is another stranger instead of the woman opening the door with him. And surprisingly, when he closes and opens again, he sees himself.

Jude feels it interesting to share with his classmate, Claire. So he asks her to come to see. They close it again and play with it together. Sometimes they see themselves opening the door at the end of the hallway; sometimes they see some strangers. Some strangers open the door very happy, and some are shy. It is a naked man always hiding his body behind the door even it is open. It is a group of kids standing and laughing right after the door when it is open by one of them. And it may also be a girl crying.




Installation structure:


I'll use a potentiometer attached to door joint to input analog to Arduino board connected to a computer. The angle of door would control video frame playing on a straight screen built into a trapezoid constructure behind the door. There will be a modified door viewer box attached to the door. It has half transparent mirror let it either see a small screen playing video or see through fish eye lens.

scenario

Concept/
Door Between Us is an interactive installation about human connection through poetics of doors opening and closing.

User/ Gallery viewers








Video content/


Possible form/


Next step/
Shoot video.
control frame by analog input.

I would like to build physical sculptures of human connection for next semester.

precedent/

Invisible doors idea

Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs, 1965

Door is an ubiquitous interface that I am interested in for its embedded abundant human collective memory and universal usability.

Developed from a daily object, a physical door has become an interactive connector leading to an imaginary world, a tele-interface between distant places, and also an illusion generator changing space and place.

Being far away form the place where I have been for 24 years, and feeling various mental and cultural interpersonal distance, I found there are more invisible doors between people. To take a door as an metaphor for separation and access from a person to another, I would like to make an interactive sculpture about human connection through poetics of doors opening and closing.

Plan/

The user can control the video frame by opening and closing the door. While it is open, two hands connected. While it is close, two hands become separated which representing a relationship is over. There will be several movie clip showing interpersonal relationship connecting and disconnecting.

Material/

video, door viewer, screen

In the future, I would like to make the video into a real movable gesture sculpture.

Here's the first try of controlling digital door by a physical one.

Physical and Digital Door from Hsiang Ju Hung on Vimeo.

Space illusion idea

Victoria Thierrée Chaplin, aurelia's oratorio, 2008
Right pic/ The performer creates an illusion that her limbs can move from drawers to drawers at ease. It looks like her body is deconstructed and moving remotely.
Left pic/ There is a train driving theough the performer's body.
In this show, I admired the way performers use the space and how all objects move to create illusions. There is a period of time when all things are living upside down. And sometimes the inside of the stage becomes outside of it because things move out from the right move in from the left at the same time. Very impressive.

Jan Svankmajer, Darkness Light Darkness


I see different ways of receiving information from a door and a lot of imagination behind it in this piece.

Inside Outside
Being inspired by many movies and performances. I am interested in how vision can change one's perspective and perception of a space. I would like to create a door that generate illusion of the inside is the outside to question where the user is.


Plan/
When a user passes the door, it would release knocking sound. When he tries to look into the door viwer, he would see himself inside the room.
Material/
Half-transparent glass, door viewer, screen, software



test with card board and mac laptop
result/
It looks like facing a mirror with a little time lag.
It needs to be added after effect of fish-eye looking view on the screen.

Tele-interface idea updated

Developed from previous idea of building a tele-door for distance users. It is sunset and sunrise that the environment changes the most everyday at the same time in both New York and Taipei. While the sun is going down, it is going up at the other side. I decided to make a door in New York leading to Taipei at this specific moment.
Sunrise Sunset
Plan/
Bring Taipei's sunrise to New York's sunset through a door viewer.
"This is how sun is going at the other side of the earth."

Material/
video, screen, door viewer.