Intangible Interaction

Catalog description

This course will focus on researching, designing, and defining Intangible Interactions together, and unveiling artistic potential in it. Intangible interactions are those that we engage in without involving direct physical contact. Some examples would be automatic toilets, shopping carts that stop rolling outside the shop, contactless thermometers, gesture-based interactions, theremin, artwork activated by your presence, and mid-air haptic experiences. Intangible interfaces don’t have a tangible form that explicitly instructs us how to interact with them, and these interactions utilize other forms of feedback than those we feel through touch. Hence, Intangible Interactions tend to be more nuanced rather than direct, and the system is intricately designed to read your intentions using sensors. While technologies used for intangible interaction–such as computer vision and sensors are now more available and accessible, knowledge around the design and implementation of effective intangible interactions is a much less explored subject. We will explore practical, artistic, and whimsical applications of intangible interaction and look at the ways it can enhance human-computer interactions in our everyday lives. For example, it can allow new ways to interact with educational exhibits, artifacts, and artworks. We will explore intangibility as a poetic medium that can open up possibilities for creating work that challenges human senses and perception. We will discuss what are cultural and social implications that we need to consider in designing intangible interactions—what does it mean for an interaction to be “intuitive” and what are some of the assumptions that are embedded into designs that we need to challenge? You will also be introduced to working with sound frequencies that are outside the hearable spectrum to create mid-air haptic feedback. Technical topics that will…