rag interface - concept

A cleaning rag as an interface to soak up information. by wiping across an augmented surface, data such as images, sounds and text are removed and stored in the cloth.

Wiping a surface: soaking up information
Wiping harder: removing layers of information.

In order to filter for different seach criteria or types of media, we can introduce the metaphor of a solvent. In order to extract a certain part of the information, the rag has to be soaked in an appropriate solvent, which acts as a filter.

In analogy to the physical world, some information substances might tend to "soil" the rag, contaminating other information that is soaked up.

Information can be released by wringing the rag. In real life, this is usually a messy business.

Also in our virtual version, we could imagine that the soaked information does not stay seperated and in the right order - by wringing the rag, the contained information is subjected to all sorts of transformations: sounds get distorted, texts get mixed up or images are blended with each other. By repeating the wiping/wringing process, this could be a playful way for remixing and recombining transformation.

technical
the wringing could be sensed through a matrix of pressure sensors or an embedded mesh of copper wires to detect changes in the inductivity

a moveable hole
A variation of the rag could be the function of a moveable hole, as we know it from Tex Avery style chase cartoons. It sucks up information, and buries it within the surface, onto which the hole is applied