Electronic Profiling
My goal is not about simply anthropomorphizing electronic objects but exposing their free time and behaviors that take place during that time.
Key questions
Do electronics have free time?
What kinds of free time do they have?
Using their characteristics, can we gain insight into their free time?
Can these findings be synthesized into a tangible design project?
Here is a short fiction I wrote based on the characters I've developed from the profile cards.I Human.
Ding dong, ding dong…
She wakes up with a sudden twitch at the sound of a doorbell. Is someone at the door? What time is it? As her vision comes into focus, she looks up and looks at her alarm clock. It is sitting there mimicking the voice of her doorbell. It’s 6:45. So today it’s the doorbell, eh? Her left eye still closed, she hits the snooze button and falls back asleep. “Give me just 10 minutes…10…”
…and today the…AND HE’S ALMOST AT THE FINISH…all the single ladies~ all the single ladies~….
This time the alarm clock turns into a radio that is searching through many channels in such little time. She let out a helpless sigh. It’s 6:55. She knows it without looking at the clock again. She slowly moves her hand over the alarm clock and turns it off. Soon after, she sits up muttering, “See you tomorrow morning.” She then stretches her right arm and grabs her cellphone to see if there are any new messages, not that she’s expecting any.
She likes organizing the refrigerator so that when she opens it, the first thing she sees is breakfast material. Oh how her face brightens up with the first gulp of fresh and cold orange juice in the morning! After tossing a slice of bread in the toaster, she walks over to the bathroom.
Buzz…goes the toothbrush, and hum…went the blow dryer.
What’s the traffic to work like today? Every morning right before going to work and right before leaving work, she checks her email and the traffic. Really though, why don’t more people do that? Today she’ll take the 710 then the 105.
It’s 7:48 already. I guess no jam for her today. She hastily grabs the toast out of the toaster and hurries out to her car—her car, where she’ll be mechanically driving for the next 30 minutes.
II Conductor.
The door slams shut as she walks out. We only hear silence. We start getting used to the silence. We hear little clicks, rustles, and sweeps here and there. What is it? Where is it coming from?
We looking for any sign of movement in the room. Immediately our attention goes towards the wall. A thermostat comes into view. Its display is no longer legible. Instead, we see shapes, codes, symbols, hieroglyphs? It appears to be thinking. Is it thinking? Or is it sending signals somewhere else? We start comparing the pattern with the room, looking for synchronized movements, sounds or changes of any sort.
We see a big square on the screen as the fan turns off.
We see an upside-down “R” on the screen as the UV sanitizer turns on.
We see blinking white light as the screen on the landline phone blinks as well.
There’s definite communication going on in this space.
What is this thermostat? Is everything in the room listening to it? Or are they just sending signals to it? Is the thermostat a conductor? Or is the conductor the control center for this house?
We look at every little movement in the room. We watch how these electronic objects communicate to each other, we study how they express, and think about how we know this. No one tells us. There are no explanations. We observe and know. We’re so much alike. Or are we really.
III The Forgotten.
We look for things that are not visible from outside. We open the nearest closet. There’s a vacuum cleaner. It’s yellow. It’s big. It’s a little smelly. It hasn’t been outside for a week or so. She’s a busy person. It’s neglected. It’s bored. It looks sad. It likes being outside, going to every corner of this house. It longs for that. It knows that she’ll be back for it when the house is dirty.
What if I made the house dirty?
What if I spent this time so that I could go out sooner?
It starts doing what it can do. What does it have? Some trash that was not emptied the last time it was outside. A motor. Air holes. It starts blowing air out exactly the opposite way it sucks trash in. It is spitting out trash. Air blows on it. Trash moves towards the door of the closet. There is a quarter-inch gap. It goes out the door. The vacuum cleaner will also go out the door soon enough.
IV Brothers.
We move to the kitchen and open the cupboard. They’re always side by side, the Food Processor and the Blender.
We don’t even know why these two are different entities. They do the same things. They chop, grind, and break things into little pieces. They are brothers at best. We do however see some differences despite their uncanny similarities. Even from appearance, the blender is much more colorful. He is used for dealing with fruit, vegetable, and dairy. By nature he is sweeter and carefree. The Food Processor is used for chopping garlic, meat, and onion. He is the reliable one that will always do the grunt work.
We hear things. Little clicks and clacks. The buttons on both machines are taking turns being pressed and released. The rhythmical sound from the machines are surprisingly soothing. Who says songs from machines can’t be as soothing as that made from birds? We enjoy the harmony of the blender brothers.
V Together.
She’s back. She seems tired but happy about being back home. Did something good happen at work? maybe a new client? She takes a shower and starts making dinner. She takes material enough for 2 servings. Is someone coming today?
As she busily moves in her kitchen, we hear a different sound and we start smelling delicious scents. Many different actions are taking place. She’s making food. She’s using different tools to get the job done. The timer that was rewinding itself all day out of boredom is actually needed now. As its ticking sound goes on, she moves around the kitchen still making noises. We enjoy the harmony of the kitchen crew.
Ding dong.
This time, someone is here. Her friend. They start cooking together while laughing and chatting about their lives.
“…so then he looked at me and I thought…”
“…I don’t know how to show it to my boss…”
“…that’s so funny!”
Everything in the kitchen is working. Except for the land-line phone we see at the corner of our eyes.
What is it doing? Is it bored? Does it feel neglected?
We see a red light turn on. Is someone leaving a message? Did it ever ring?
The counter on the phone changed from “00” to “01.”
“You have ONE new message.”
We see the woman walk over to the phone. She pressed a couple of grey buttons. “New message, Seven twenty-one. PM.”
“…so then he looked at me and I thought…”
“…I don’t know how to show it to my boss…”
“…that’s so funny!”
What a desperate piece of technology.