Enchantment

ENCHANTMENT Curiouser and Curiouser

“I’m never sure what I’m going to be, from one minute to the other!”

INTRODUCTION in lewis carroll’s classic tale, Alice in Wonderland, Alice found herself staring at the “looking-glass” at the top of the chimney. She wondered what was on the other side and asked herself: what if I go through it and explore?

Like Alice, I found myself staring at my designer’s “looking glass”: the computer screen. I wondered what was on the other side. I wanted to go beyond the digital sketch as a way to create enchanting experiences as a designer because enchanting experiences make memories that are meaningful. I asked myself: how can I create an enchanting experience that is meaningful through design, interaction and technology? The research and the projects resulting encompass my journey trying to answer that question. Each chapter in this thesis is a part of the journey and, like Alice, each part has puzzled me in some way. I found a parallel story in my own venture into unknown territories as a graphic designer exploring interaction beyond the computer screen, to Alice’s travel in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. This is the reason why at the beginning of each chapter there is a quote from Carroll’s story, alluding to the content of the chapter at hand.

In order to go beyond the screen in interaction design, my research led me to trace the window and mirror metaphor that can be used on screens, to their origins before the Renaissance in the study of optics and catoptrics (the study of mirrors). I also researched linear perspective and found how this discovery, and the concept of transparency it conveys, has carried on to the way we use and design interfaces on screens today. This research led me to traverse through the looking glass, going beyond the screen to a space in between the window and mirror metaphor rooted in interaction design today. My research, both theoretical and practical led me to create an interactive installation that uses content transfer through touch, projected on the body.

The installation plays on the concept of stardust. Through the playful situation of tag (the children’s game where they touch someone and that person “is it”), participants can explore the system and the physical boundaries between them, passing the stardust back and forth through touch, creating a magical experience. I developed the project conceptually and aesthetically. I created as well the interactive system for the installation using code as a tool (through open source soTware specifically) and body movement as design material. n

just like alice got curious by seeing a rabbit with petticoat and watch run towards a rabbit hole, I am curious about how we can use design to create experiences in the real world that leave us transfixed and spellbound. This is because in these experiences we can engage with others, discover things about our relationships with people and ourselves and exploit our creativity. When we are spellbound, or transfixed by enchantment, we lose track of time: we are in the moment. This state of awareness is what we remember most. And those are experiences where we find meaning. It is when things we know shiT in some way, yet are recognizable, that we are wondered: “To be enchanted is to be struck and shaken by the extraordinary that lives amid the familiar and the everyday.” (Bennett 2001: 4).

CYCLES

Every time there is a new technology to explore, we tend to tinker with ideas over and over. These cycles have existed for a long time. We have been in awe making the invisible visible, altering things in size and dimension. We have explored the representation of our own image over and over.

With the invention of every new media there is a link to the one before it. When television first arrived, it was dealt with as radio with images: it was what Bolter and Gromala call a remediation (1999). The study of these cycles and remediations informs the development of new media. This is why looking at the history of specific media and recurrent themes about them has been an important part of my research. This analysis has been referred to as Media Archaeology and is relevant because, as Huhtamo mentions, “Identifying ways in which media culture relies on the already known is just as essential as determining how it embodies and promotes the never before seen.” (Huhtamo, 2009: 14). It is in this way of looking back that we can move forward: studying past concepts and the compelling stories they tell.

A good way for me to explore the ideas surrounding enchantment was to analyze projects done by others and see how they handled this concept. Inspired by this work, I made projects on my own. I started my analysis by looking at the magical qualities of mirrors.

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THE EXTRAORDINARY IN THE ORDINARY

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

–Arthur C. Clarke

Magic Mirrors In the past, mirrors were considered a source of magic. In medieval times it was believed that with mirrors, you could reflect the goodness or virtuosity of a relic on to something else. Other magical properties mirrors were believed to have are the power of healing or, like in the fairytale Snow White, be able to tell the truth. The scientific study of mirrors, catoptrics (with the aid of physics and optics) tried to explain the reasons behind their magic. Today, mirrors are known to show the reflection of our image. The ability to look at ourselves through them has become so mundane we do not stop to think about it. When we carry on to interaction design, through the use of screens, we expect to see our truthful image: a reflection of ourselves.

When this fails to happen and we see something unexpected in front of us, we encounter puzzlement and enchantment.

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A contemporary example of this type of enchantment is the work by french designer Karleen Groupierre. A PhD lecturer at Université Paris 8, Groupierre is one of two coordinators of the research theme Forms of augmented reality. She researches cross-media as a driver of innovation in developing multimedia, and has digital installations regularly exhibited. Karleen Groupierre shows in Miroir, an installation that uses a magic mirror to tell us more about ourselves. When you look at the mirror in the installation instead of seeing your reflection, you see the head of an animal that looks like you. This is done by using facetracking and 3D modeling, matching the proportions of one’s face to that of an animal with similar proportions. We can observe from people’s reactions that Miroir falls within the boundary of un-recognizability that makes it enchanting rather than scary. I interviewed Karleene Groupierre and talked about this piece. She found that in Miroir people tried new ways of posing, and even tried to fool the mirror: what would happen if you put your hand on your mouth, or turn your head to the side? The creativity in people came forth. I asked Groupierre what was her inspiration behind this piece. She answered: I think about the child’s universe, the children’s world.

The way we are when we are kids, and how we project ourselves and our fictions into the world. For example, they see a documentary about dolphins and then they pretend they are dolphins, that type of thing. And this universe is what I find interesting and wanted to integrate in my work...In the universe of a child, when we see a mirror we can imagine that is a magic mirror, like the mirror in Snow White, asking: who is the prettiest one? It’s that part of the magic object that you can imagine as a child and lose a bit when you are an adult. We want to turn those things into something real. Those things that exist in the universe of fiction, and that are actually like a dream.

I think that a lot of my work is that; to give the fiction a touch of the real.

To further explore the concepts of mirrors, magic and remediation I made the following pilot projects and case studies at an early stage as part of my research.

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MIROIR /CASE STUDY

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Alice Games is a pilot project I developed trying to explore the reflective part of our digital interfaces, the mirror quality they provide. I was inspired by the following excerpt from Alice in Wonderland: “Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears?... I must be kind to them,” thought Alice, “or perhaps they won’t walk the way I want to go!”

I asked myself: what if we could see ourselves and our feet (or other parts of our bodies) won’t follow the “normal way” they are supposed to walk? What if we could have this grid of mirrors that could enhance our eyes, or show our feet walk away as we come closer? This trick of perspective and dissociation between what we do and expect to see on the mirrors, seemed like an interesting situation in which our perception could be altered. This pilot project was developed only up to a rapid prototype stage, in order for me to explore the ways we can engage with our own image.

At that stage of my development in the MA I did not possess the skills to make it a working prototype. However, I learned how to test out the idea first in order to find out how people responded or how I could improve it. I discovered how we are drawn to look at our own image, and when shown in an unexpected way (for instance, altering dimensions) we stop to explore ourselves through these shiTs in perception.

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ALICE GAMES

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21 www.yesyesno.com www.hellicarandlewis.com

As part of my research I looked at interactive projects that I find magical. One of these is Night Lights. This project, done by the interactive collective YesYesNo and Hellicar&Lewis, magnifies participant’s bodies in the form of shadows projected on buildings, amplifying them 5 stories tall. The Auckland Ferry Building in New Zealand became an interactive playground, where people could play with their shadows, color and light. I found magical the way that through movement, people could create images of monsters, or create different shapes; all based on their own reflection. The setting of this project allowed people to play together; they came up with clever ideas on how to project their bodies in novel ways. This experience created a situation where the bodies’ reflection affected what we saw on the real world, every time with unpredictable results, leading to curiosity and surprise.

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NIGHT LIGHTS /CASE STUDY

The use of models communicate the space and the hardware set-up of the project.

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This sketch, drawn by Peter Hellicar shows the set-up of the installation, and the way they matched pixel ratios.

Pop-Up Book I explored the theme of remediation by telling a story using a pop-up book enhanced with projected animations. This project takes from the paper pop-up book form, and makes it anew by pairing it up with moving images projected on it. This project also followed my inquiry into blending the real with the virtual. I used animations that were part of my conference presentation summing up research and work on the first year of the MA. I hand-made the pop-up book, created the animations and design, and made a film of the performance. The materiality of the paper in the book, and the projections filling the pop-up forms made the book come to life. Through storytelling and remediation I tried to create an unexpected result at the turn of every page.

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The process of creating the Pop-Up Book started with laser-cutting the forms, then binding the book and testing out folds for the projections to fall in place.

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I created a film that matched page-turns when telling the story.

That is the reason why I needed to make a storyboard to know what type of image would pop-up in a certain page, and use an appropriate shape for it.

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I explored enchantment through pilot projects that focused on magic mirrors and the remediation of a pop-up book that blends the physical with the virtual. These projects allowed me to research in a practical way the qualities of enchantment. To make Alice Games fully function, or to create experiences like the ones analyzed in my case studies, I needed to acquire skills beyond the sketch or animation.

To do so, I ventured into the world of programming and the open platforms that allow it to thrive today. n

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I WONDER