Descriptions
Technology is changing our lives and impacting human behavior in ways we have never seen before. Our relationship with one another has changed as it is no longer bounded in one contiguous space but by the reach of our technology network. We experience this interconnectedness through numerous applications on our smartphones. We constantly stare, tap, and swipe without realizing the consequences and the implications of these actions. However, I believe the more we use our phone to stay connected, the less we are connected in the real world.
My project aims to focus on these mundane behavior and often normative behavior (tap, swipe, scroll) and attempt to translate these physical interactions into virtual parameters via Virtual Reality Technology. A parody of repeated physical interaction we do every day without thinking.
- Log in - Tap App - Tap Swipe Tap - Lock the phone. REPEAT
- Wake up - Shower - Eat - Work - Sleep. REPEAT
I wish to translate this cause and effect in VR that one tap means more than just a simple visual and sound feedback/response you see on screen. You don’t see it but our action/input with our smart devices, this electronically networks establish a new type of relationship to the widely scattered people and places we care about. Networks connect and propagate the effects of our action. Today we can do unto others at a great distance, and they can unto us. I’m attempting to visualize these hidden connections we all have and that smartphones make us closer to people they are far away from, but farther from the people they’re close to.
The project is a multi-performance and game-like storytelling experience of multiple users (2 users) where they are the creator of the virtual world. The experience requires each user’s physical input/interaction into virtual parameters via VR controllers (I want to use smartphones instead of VR controllers). At the beginning of the experience, they will physically sit next to each other and once they put on the VR headset, they will see a white world (a blank canvas) with their phones’ screens. The more they use (swipe, tap, scroll) their smartphone in VR, the more content (wireframes) will be generated and eventually they can no longer see each other in VR because they would feel a gradual shift away from each other during the game.
For now, I will focus on 2 people as my user subjects. They are friends and use their phone often. I will use a Moment App to collect and log data for one week. The Moment App tracks what apps my users used the most and how much time they spend connected. The VR environment content will depend on the what App my users used the most. I’m thinking of using existed UX/UI wireframes that procedurally created by user’s input(tap/swipe/scroll). After I’ve collected what App they used the most, the test user subjects will have to play my VR game too.
Personal Statement
As a trained Architect, I have always had a keen awareness of our surroundings and have always designed for the built world. Data and information gathered from physical systems and sensors help architects to design smart homes and eventually smart cities. I feel like architect’s role in the new digital age will not only shape, arrange, and connect spaces in the physical world to satisfy human needs. But we need to be able to speculate and be aware of the connected space in the virtual world too because networks have become part of our daily life.
In a rhizomatic way, humans have a symbiotic relationship with technology and similar to how every human is created uniquely. The relationship with our phones is also uniquely different. We are co-creating and uniquely tailoring our personal space in the digital world that is customized to our needs and interests.
"If we understand what is happenings, and if we can conceive and explore alternative futures, we can find opportunities to intervene, sometimes to resist, to organize, to legate, to plan, and to design”, William J Mitchell