I've successfully passed my qualifying MIT general exam, showing the mastery of the specific knowledge required (analysis) and extend ideas into new territory (synthesis). I took three written exams and passed an oral exam that merged my three research areas. I titled the new territory for my PhD: "Grounding interfaces: shifting the body boundaries".

For the contextual area, I worked with Dr Edith Ackermann, honorary professor of developmental psychology in France and visiting professor of Architecture at MIT. I explored the psychological trade-off between what we call virtual and tangible “attachments”: I focused on people’s attachments to things, and through things, their relations to people (virtual and digital). I addressed the digital object collection mechanism in relation to the way we gather artifacts in the physical world (developmental psychology).

For the technical area, I worked with physicist Dr Joe Paradiso, Associate Professor at MIT. This area covered the design of technologies for body sensing and expression (electrical engineering/sensing technology).

For the main area, I worked with computer engineer Dr Hiroshi Ishii, Associate Professor at MIT. This area focused on foundations in the design of tangible interfaces and interaction design (computer science/HCI/interaction design).

Here is my presentation in .pdf format. Oral exam: blog entry.

What are the shared plasticity mechanisms between auditory, visual, and haptic stimulation? Beyond biology, what if a device could provide temporally grounding sensory stimulation in a patient's environment, customized by the patient's input?

Hap-bit: web site

The WoW Pod is an immersive architectural space that provides and anticipates all life needs of the World of Warcraft player. Outfitted with toilet throne, hydration system, and meals at the ready, the WoW Pod makes daily human function possible without ever stepping away from the game. In addition, these tasty meals are cooked via a cookset that connects a hotplate to the computer, allowing the player to let their World of Warcraft avatar know when the meal is ready to eat.

The AFK cookset and WOW pod: web site

 

Visualizing the unseen always leads to fascinating and playful exploration. All devices emit background signals (electrostatically, magnetically, acoustically, and optically) that are characteristic of particular devices and also sometimes indicate that device’s mode of operation ...

EMFDB: web site

 

If the toy had a visual perspective immediately accessible to the child, a new world would be opened to her. The toy could potentially bring the child into exploring visual and narrative perspectives of these character props, expanding her discovery and understanding of social interrelationships.

Picture This!: web site

 

Jabberstamp? It is for adults to understand that a work of art is not a hat, but a boa digesting an elephant! - Yasmine Abbas

 

Touch·Sensitive focuses on the material - how the structure and the embedded components of a garment participate in pushing its function to become an envelope or cocoon for one's well-being.

 

The Texture of Light is an attempt to fight the boredom of everyday life. This project employs the simple use of chemistry, Plexiglas, and plastic patterns to form a reconstruction of reality, giving it a texture and expressive form.

The Texture of Light: web site

 

My vision is to have in miniature the multitude of patterns that one can see from a distance. I research on how digital technologies make us re-evaluate the physical world. In this project, I study the materiality perceived through aerial technologies.

Aerial Jewelry: web site

 

Cool me down - An electronic cold wrap. Hurt me - A bracelet that generates therapeutic controlled pain. Squeeze me – A haptic vest that simulates therapeutic Holding, Touch me - Remote application of touch therapy.

 

Bright, inexpensive daytime displays on two towers and the ground fulfill the role of the roses to provide compass directions to local attractions through graphics and text on billboards and the ground. Based on my previous research Passing Glances (2002-2004), the Kendall Roses are designed to be an autonomous art installation that brings added value to the Kendall Square community.

 

Towards expressive design software: when your voice controls the making of furniture!

 

PlayPals are a set of figurines with their electronic accessories that provide children with a playful way to communicate between remote locations.

The sense of touch is essential to emotional health and development. Taptap is a wearable accessory that can record, distribute and play back affectionate touch. Designed to look like a normal scarf, taptap provides extra warmth and comfort by simulating the touch of a loved one.

I believe that new work in this area can physically substantiate the documentation through tagging, the incoportation of physical communites or other conceptual redefinitions of the environment one seeks to capture.

The Ambient Peacock Explorer: blog entry

Terraria brings technological landscapes and robotic art into the scene to participate in the exhibition space.

Terraria: web site

 

In Moving Pictures, the tangible handle is more than a marker or place-holder for digital data. It has the power to materialize and redefine our conception of space and content during the creative process.

Mixer Subverter is an online ‘adaptable’ space for children to integrate the activities of play and video editing into a never-ending process of mixing and 'subversion' of each other's material, encouraging playful collaboration in an exchange network of unique media artefacts.

Mixer Subverter: web site

 

Passing Glances enables users to create ambient urban interludes through the use of SMS text messages. The Passing Glances system contains keyword-associated imagery that is stored 'in the city'. Images are revealed to the passersby when SMS keywords trigger the system.

Passing Glances: web site

 

Textable Game aims to engage teenagers in building games using their own footage, to generate environment, activity and sound, and to allow them to create their own rules and scenarios from this media.

Textable Movie: web site

 

Inspired by the experimental cinema works of Kenneth Anger, Eaux d'Artifice, 1953, in which the rhythm between music and images is synchronized as soundtracks become mapped onto the video, with the Cati Dance project I explored a new relationship between audio and video for interactive media where the content of a video is controlled by audio analysis of a soundtrack in real time. The piece, implemented by Tristan Jehan, aims to bridge a gap between machine listening technology, and self-editing, self-synchronizing video. The movie organizes itself from listening to arbitrary music.

Cati Dance: video

 

An interactive play space in which participants wield magic wands and practice wizardry! I implemented the first version of this project, a shared video space co-controlled by physical objects in which participants wield magic wands and practice wizardry.

 

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Droppin’ Science encourages children to revisit their preconception about pop music and design their own music piece composing with provided music samples from pop music bands they cherished. Droppin’ Science consists of a mobile, tangible, easy-to-use, loop-based music mixing interface. Participants learn how to mix music. They learn about effects, beat mixing, tempo, beats per minute, and musical composition. They learn how use music and sound as a means of self-expression and how technology can facilitate this. They are able to think of content from their daily lives as artistic material, to be reworked for self-expression.

 

Throughout my past research, I explored the redesign of existing technologies to twist the relationship of the digital with the physical. I co-designed Hover to provide a sense of the presence and activities of remote users through a ball that either floats in the air or rests inactive on a surface. The motion of a remote persona is manifested as the playful movements of a ball floating in midair.

 

Hover: web site

 

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Dolltalk is a gesture based storytelling system. Dolltalk captures, analyzes and interprets a set of gestures in parallel with analyzing changes in voice prosody. Using sensors and audio analysis, the system interprets the narrative structure of a story. The primary goal of Dolltalk is to invite children to discover narrative perspectives during storytelling play.

Sam is a 3-D animated virtual peer who can share stories and pass physical toys back and forth with children.

 

I designed a video background projected behind digital avatars to create a sense of shared physical space between the digital agent and the participant. I designed an interactive table made of regular papers on which one could scribble on at the same time than interacting with MACK, an avatar agent. MACK is an Embodied Conversation Agent (ECA) who can answer questions about and give directions to the Media Lab's various research groups, projects, and people. MACK uses a combination of speech, gesture, and reference to a normal paper map that users place on a table between themselves and MACK. Research issues involve users' differential attention to hand gestures, speech and the map, and how reference using these modalities can be fused in input and generation.

While developing Dolltalk, Story Generator and Emailer, I analysed the underlying discourse structure and mechanisms of children narrative while improvising a story and their beliefs about the world during this process.

 

Tai.Ba: web site

Konsensus: web site Konsensus: video

Tai.Ba: web site

Konsensus: web site Konsensus: video

Emailer: video