Author Archive
Final Project - Technology
RumblePhones consist of a pair of noise canceling -20 Db ear protecting headphones, two microphones, two vibration motors, an amplification circuit, and an Arduino Microcontroller. The microphones, mounted on the headphones themselves, will pick up sounds from the surrounding environment, and feed this data, after amplification, to the Arduino as an analog value. This value will be used to control the speed of two vibrating motors, mounted in the cups of the headphones themselves. This process translates the sounds of the surrounding environment into vibrations felt on the ear of the user.
After putting the device’s headphones on, the user will be invited to walk around the area the project is displayed, experiencing the sounds of their environment as vibration. A potentiometer on the RumblePhones will allow the user to adjust their sensitivity, allowing the translation of sound to vibration to be clear even in a loud environment.
The Parabolic Hand Mics consist of two small, directional, parabolic mics, to be placed in the users hands. The output from these microphones will be run through two sensitive amplification circuits, each with an independent volume adjustment, and then fed to a pair of headphones. The mic held in the left hand will be tied to the left channel of the headphones, and the one in the right hand to the right channel. The mics will, in a sense, become the users “ears”, and moving them about will alter what they hear, and the direction that they hear from. This experience should be evocative of how animals that can move their ear cups, such as cats or rabbits, perceive sound.
Final Project - Devices for Altering Aural Perception
A set of devices designed to change the way the user perceives sonic environments.
Devices for Altering Aural Perception consist on a group of devices that are designed to change the way the user perceives sonic environments and the city. This project aims to be an exploration/research in human perception, specifically in the way that we perceive the sonic environments that surround us on a daily basis. How could that perception be augmented or translated to offer us a different experience/sense “of reality”. What if we could experience the city from a (non-human) animal perspective? What do they experience? Can we experience/sense the city as they do?
keywords: senses, sound, perception, synaesthesia, physical computing, animals vs humans
Motivation: This project comes from a shared interest in the differences between human and animal perception, synaesthetic experiences, and sound. We aimed to create simple, discreet, and wearable devices capable of allowing the user to reexamine and explore everyday acoustic environments in new and interesting ways.
User Scenario: After putting on the devices, and adjusting their sensitivity, users will be encouraged to explore the sonic environment that surrounds them.
Related Projects
Inter Dis-Communication Machine:
This is one of my favorites projects that I had experience in terms of interactive art. Why? Because it was the project that made me experience something that we don’t experience in our everyday life in terms of perception: see my self, see me outside of my body ( a bit trip mode but amazing ) and experience the feel of the sense of my body at the same time that i was seeing by body walking around in my front. It was scary but an amazing experience.
Two players wear head-mounted video cameras and backpack transmitters with wings. Incredibly, out of this clunky gear springs a delightful, futuristic play world. The most fantastic element of this interactive paradise is its visual trickery. Each player views his or her own image retransmitted through the other player’s headgear.
“Once in his world, our old standards and perceptions become mere illusions that we can manipulate and enjoy as we will. “
Metaform final idea - Zoospectives
A set of devices that allow us to experience the city from a (non-human) animal perspective. What I am interested in exploring is not only how animal perception differs from human perception but also to think about their behaviour in the city. What do they experience? Can we experience the city as they do?
Metaform Idea - SITE
I decided to work with Phone Booths and Payphones, since I considered them as an obsolete space in the city. 
Manifesto
Architecture is about designing systems that are functional and practical. Is about building physical structures that reflect social structures at the same time that as define.
It’s also about expression and aesthetics. In this process of “building an expression”, experimentation is needed. And as the past show us, experimentation can not be separated from technique and materials. Innovation in many fields influenced the evolution of architecture. Today the computer and digital technologies opened a different “modus operandi”, even if more theoretical and dry, of doing and thinking about architecture. It is taking architecture in the hands of the computer, it’s true but this experimentation is necessary and healthy to provoke different approaches and different processes.
In the past, architects like Archigram and Buckminster Fuller purposed new visions that were criticized at the time and today we see their ideas putting in practice and used as inspiration. Both also developed ideas and concepts and they heavily influenced without making buildings ( one critic of the computational architecture). I am not saying that computational architecture is equivalent but is somehow similar and comparable.
What differ today is the society where we live and are part of. We live in a faster world today, where information and tools are available as never before. What is today avant-garde , in the next day is mainstream” (alex ).
I like futuristic visions. I think they open new perspectives, new ways of thinking about, int his case, architecture and cities. Experimentation is needed, new ways of thinking about space and structures is needed. If scripts and code are going to be the language of architecture in the future I don’t know…
