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I am fascinated by the idea of the subconscious as a filter. Last semester I wrote about Tor Nørretranders’s User Illusion and how the subconscious filters all our sensory input and presents the conscious with a distilled version of reality with which to consciously interact.

But this user illusion of a user friendly environment—similar to the way that operating systems create the vocabulary of desktop, folders, and documents for unintelligible “0″s and “1″s—was something that has evolved over the millennia of human history, which technology is only recently coming into play.

My proposed thesis is a two pronged exploration of how technology can augment our awareness by acting as an extra sensory filter for stimulation that we are not naturally aware of or is outside our immediate environment. I am interested in both (1) an intellectual exploration of the role of the subconsciousness as a filter along with (2) a practical prototype of a device which filters and communicates our awareness of each other. The practical piece is two paired objects (in this case, lockets) owned by two emotionally linked people. When one locket is opened, the other locket warms up, making the other emotionally aware that they are being thought of. The device piggybacks off of each individual’s cellular network to communicate to each other and trigger the heating element of it’s paired twin.

What it Is

My thesis is an exploration of technologically mediated emotional awareness through two paired lockets shared between two close individuals. When one locket is opened, the other locket warms up as a subtle and soothing reminder that they are being thought of.

why

I am fascinated by the idea of technologically mediated consciousness. The words that I type on this page where originally concepts that I composed in to words, sentences, paragraphs, sections, and pages. They were then, once again, decomposed into letters to be typed on a keyboard and visualized on a screen.  In short, today’s technologically mediated communications are a series of abstractions, from the generation of words to their digitization on the computer.  While touch and gesture technology is progressing, it still hasn’t bypassed the manipulation and limitations that our original concepts went through to be composed into words.

On the other hand, the world that we consciously perceive is only a fraction of the rich environment that our senses take in and subconsciously distill into our present experience. I see the future of technology to be one that gradually closes this gap between our intended message and our filtered experience. While I do not believe it is the roll of one thesis to over through the history of human communication—and know that I would not be capable of such an endeavor even if it were possible—I want to explore these different states of interaction by just pealing back a simple layer: an exploration of awareness itself.  My project is a means of expressing awareness of one explicit thing: the person that wears the object paired to yours.

My thesis explores several layers of awareness. There is the awareness of the initiator. It is a change of state from a dawning thought of their other individual to a focused meditation enabled by having a point of focus: a picture in locket. Conversely, the locket is a filter that makes us synchronously aware of the other’s awareness in a way less overt than a phone call, a text, a note, or a tap on the shoulder. It is a simple feeling of warmth. By virtue of being a piece of wearable technology, the absence of stimulation is easily overlooked—the piece is, after all, a necklace and already serves a purpose. But, when it is activated, it gains meaning.

Thus, the thesis is an exploration of focus, awareness, and the synchronicity of the two.

Scenario of Use / User profile

The piece is intended for two emotionally bound individuals to casually share their day to day awareness of each other. These individuals can be friends, lovers, or family—any two people that care for each other. The piece serves as a focus for meditation on that individual but, contrary to the limited features of a common locket, this locket binds the two closer by bringing synchronous awareness when one is thinking of the other.

Each individual wears one of the lockets (specific objects to vary in the future) throughout the day. Inside of each locket is a picture of the other locket owner. Thus, when user A is thinking of user B, A can open his/her locket and look at the picture of B. B could be anywhere, so long as (s)he can access the cellular network, so that his/her locket will subtly warm up when A’s locket is opened. The process is bi-directional, B can similarly trigger A’s locket to heat by opening B’s locket.

While I do not plan to follow this direction in this current iteration, I think it is valid at this point to address my views of a 24-hour ambient technology user experience. Much of the value of the locket is that it is an unobtrusive implementation of technology. I feel that, as technology progresses, one valuable direction is in its complete integration into our lifestyle to the point that we are no longer consciously aware of our use of technology. It helps direct us but we do not consciously call for it. In a way, it would be the perfect user illusion, a wedding of technology and our consciousness.

One step in this direction is to conceal the mechanical man behind the curtain by ending the ritual of technology. Every day we plug in out laptops to take notes. Each night we plug in our cell phones to recharge. For a piece of wearable technology to fully be experienced as a garment or accessory rather than a piece of technology would require its divorce from the ritual of recharging or changing batteries. I see the future of inductive charging (wireless charging) to be an almost immediate solution to this. If, rather than plugging in the locket to recharge it, the user placed it in a jewelry box on on a tray on the bedside table which acted as a recharger, then it would be completely within the paradigm of jewelry being removed and put in its place.

Turning disadvantages into features

While I am still exploring the exact implementation of the heating element, there is potential for me to use the heating as a heat sink, drawing any residual heat that might damage the circuit into the heating area so that it warms up the wearer instead.  I am, however, rather doubtful that the heat from the circuit would be that severe.

How does is work?

Conceptually, the piece is rather simple, there is a switch in the clasp of each locket. When the connection is broken, the other locket’s warming mechanism is triggered. To implement this, however, we have to establish communication between the two lockets and create circuits small enough to fit in a locket and powerful enough to warm the locket occasionally throughout the day.

Communication

The two lockets will be piggybacking off of each user’s cellphone network to communicate to each other. The lockets connect to their respective cellphones through bluetooth and send values to an application running on the phones. Each locket will send a simple boolean value of open (true or false) to the application. If the value is true the application will send a cue to the other phone. That application will then cue the locket to warm up.

At this point the amount of time the locket is warmed will be for a set length and only will be retriggered upon closing and reopening the initializing locket. With future experimentation, I may have a more direct correlation between the locket opening and closing.

Size

Below, you can see my time line where I fast track circuit development so that I can order circuit boards to be manufactured. By ordering properly manufactured circuit boards, I will be able to incorporate surface mount components and make the overall piece much smaller.

Battery Life

I am looking to approach the battery challenge by minimizing the strain on the battery. Heating elements such as the peltier module require a large amount of current to heat up. Instead, I am looking at alternatives, such as resistors or a heat sink to warm up the locket.

Time Line

Week 1

this.*

Week 2

breadboard demo with communication through bluetooth to turn it on and off. Determine full list of future needed materials for perf board and pcb board print future versions and possibly make order.

Week 3

v.2 of the circuit on a perf board communicating with cellphone

Week 4

Determine locket shape / size. Will it be a repurposed necklace, a laser cut demo, or am I going to magic up my own design? Layout proposed printed circuit board for review. Get input. After class, order board and fervently play that future changes can all be a matter of programming/

Week 5

Demo cellphone to cellphone communication. Refine heating element

Week 6

Refine Cellphone coding-ness. Explore more of the cell phone exterior

Week 7

Mid-semester critique to outside evaluators.  Hopefully receive circuit boards and start soldering

Week 8

PROTOTYPE finished (commence testing) (what level of testing am I going to use? can it just be near by stuff hacked through the computers and internet? Too restrictive. User testing must be with phones. Phones need a network. I need them to interface with phones people are using.)

Week 9

Documentation time and tweaks to settings of the locket

Week 10

More documentation and photo shoot with the locket.

Week 11

Administrative deadlines for thesis show: Title, description, & url, officially submitted. Develop the documentation website and migrate relevant content.

Week 12

Clean-up and practice

Week 13&14

Final In-class Presentation: Thesis Document submitted

Thesis Week

FINAL PRESENTATION: Moment of truth

Criteria for Success

I look to the thesis project as a synthesis of my experiences and a culminating exploration of wearable technology. The project explores physical computing, programming, cellular communication, as well as awareness all within the sphere of wearable technology. In this case, I will have succeeded when I have a working prototype with the potential to being mass produced for commercial consumption. I would also like it to be well developed to the point that I can approach a few cellphone manufacturers for more specifications on bluetooth communication with their phones.

This will only be one half of the puzzle, of course, as I hope to develop a following piece focused on the “masculine” audience. But the components developed for the locket will be reusable in other projects.

What is the feeling you want to involve?

I find this to be a surprisingly abstract question. There is the element of affection, love, caring, that is underlying the entire piece. But my immediate interest is in awareness of the other individual and meditation on them and what they mean.

Similar Projects

Some of these projects are directly related, especially CuteCircuit’s Hug shirt and some off the MIT media lab’s research.  Others I have found interesting for an assortment or reasons, be their decorative, conceptual, or curious.

Bluetooth

• Flame 5 Jacket senses a text and warms up

Jewelry and Communication

• Mutsugoto, touch with light
• Sweetheart Broach
• The Facebook Locket
• Flash Drive Locket by Emily Conrad
• 1881 photo locket
• Disney Photo Locket
• Vibe: Emotional Sensor by Philips Design
• Skintile Electronic Sensing Jewelry by Philips Design
• MIT Media labs Amarino project connecting arduino and the android by bluetooth.

Emotional Sensing

• Bubelle sensitive dress (2006) by Philips Design
• Hug Shirt by CuteCircuit
• iCalm
• Emotion Jacket by the MIT labs
• Communication Apparel
• EmoGlove recording use on the computer and the user’s frustration
• Heart Robot loves the hugs
• Emotive Flowers
• Emotion Communication in Autism from the MIT Media Labs by Rosalind W. Picard, Matthew Goodwin, Jackie Lee, Rich Fletcher, Kyunghee Kim and Robert Morris
• Externalization Toolkit from the MIT Media Labs by Rosalind W. Picard, Matthew Goodwin and Jackie Chia-Hsun Lee

Unobtrusive interaction

• RoCo: A Robotic Desktop Computer at the MIT media lab by Cynthia Breazeal, Rosalind W. Picard, Hyungil Ahn, Andrew Wang and Rana el Kaliouby

Ectcetera

• Emotion, Dating, and txt messages
• Kiss the LUVU

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