I was fortunate to organize the lecture of Prof. David Cuartielles, K3, Malmo University, Sweden at C-DAC on July 6, 2005. Thanks to Prof. Simon Niedenthal whome I met in Denmark for passing my contact to David. 'Physical computing', the topic of his lecture, reminded me of the mysterious and magical objects from the fairy tales like the talking trees, the wall which used to listen, the statue that walked, and the vase that produced gold coins every morning. 'Alibaba and Forty Thieves' story mentions about a cave which used to open its door after the signature call 'Khul Jaa Sim Sim' was made by the visitor. Amazingly, the door had such an intelligent system that the pronounciation, the quality of sound and the pitch of the call did not matter.
David applies sensor technologies to design such magical objects. His 'Annoying Chair', which talks with the person seated on it, is really wonderful. It would be very interesting to design such entertaining chairs for the handicaps who are stuck with the wheel-chair permanently. The chair can play the friend or the counselor to such handicap patients. Also, his idea of the confessionary room that talks like a priest, can be useful for the loners and old people who always want to talk to someone. His alchophone was really funny. To me he appeared like a magician from the Harry Potter movie, who teaches things that question the rules of the conventional physical world. His idea of teaching electronics and hardware prototyping to art and design students is really path breaking. It opens up new vistas and challenges in fusing electronics and arts together. To me, it again highlights the lack of interdisciplinary cooperation in Indian education and research. We together discussed how the characters of such inanimate objects be designed using behavioral metaphors.
Designing physical interactions, and building different types of
emotional relationships between the objects and humans
should be the focus of research today.
It is beyond the usability goals.
It reminds me of what my father told me one day, when I asked him to throw away his old shaving kit, which he used for 30 years. He said it has been with him for so long that he is attached to it emotionally. He cannot even think of throwing it away. May be in near future, David will produce a shaving kit that will reciprocate similar emotions to its users. We will have products with different personalities. We will have products that will be 'loyal' to their masters only.
