Media Replacing Our Senses
Inspiration through finding

There is an overwhelming myriad of media spoiling our senses in today’s world. While we are trying to extend our senses through these media, our sensibility towards objects has degenerated. This can be seen with the design research we did in Superstudio regarding people’s attitude toward Global Warming. We found that the families in Pasadena have learned all their knowledge and experience of nature from television and the Internet. Some interviewees even felt uneasy when thinking of contacting nature directly. When we asked their opinion regarding the global warming, they didn’t think they had the ability to solve the problem and passively thought the responsibilities belong to the government and scientists. However, they might not think that the world will actually be changed if people change their behaviors and concepts.

Now the relevant question is how can we help people to notice these things that they usually take for granted. The Transbehavior object is a way for people to perceive this world outside from themselves.

Transbehavior, a Strategy for New Design Thinking
Stimulating the imagination

My thesis focuses on Transbehavior. This is the name of a methodology that I created through my research in graduate school. Transbehavior is a strategy for new design thinking. The concept of Transbehavior creates artifacts that make use of animal behavior by juxtaposing it onto objects in our daily life. This project is designed to disrupt our daily routine in order to stimulate the imagination. Through animal behaviors, we can experience the world of animals and perceive our sensory lives in a different way.

The concept of Transbehavior stemmed from findings in a year long research course, Superstudio. One of the design probes explored the relationship between teens and nature. We interviewed teenagers in Pasadena about aspects of nature that they found delightful. It is interesting to learn that the teens liked to hear the sound of rain, while the people living in a rainy area, like myself, think the sound of rain is annoying. This particular behavior could be transformed into an interface that visualizes the relationship between the teens and nature.

Concept Testification

To testify the concept of Transbehavior, I designed a small experiment. The demonstration was called “Bird Chirping in the Concrete Space.” I put a speaker in my pocket that broadcasted the sound of a bird chirping. When I walked outside the building, no one noticed the sound. However, when I walked into the building, people noticed the sound and turned their heads looking for birds. The sound of birds chirping was a powerful insight because it was applied it in a totally different environment. People became sensitive to bird chirpings, which is usually ignored. This indicated that Transbehavior can be used as effective communication design.

More Research and Exploration
Imaginative relationships between objects and people

The next question is how “Transbehavior” be applied into communication design to influence people’s original behaviors and generate new experiences. With no pre-determinated outcome to constrain the research, “bounding terms” were implemented to explore the role of the behaviors. The feelings generated by behavior include “unexpected”, “delightful”, “humorous”, and “anthropomorphic”. In order to create the rich opportunity for new, imaginative relationships between objects and people, my work encodes human experiences, cultural metaphors and biological interaction into behaviors. First of all, I would like to discuss why I connect “human experiences, cultural metaphors and biological interaction” with “behavior”.

The behaviors give birth to experiences

The evolution of human civilization is continuously built on the accumulation of the experiences. Through trial and error, the behaviors give birth to experiences. But what is the relationship between behaviors and the evolution of the media?

Form follows behavior
The evolution of tools

Forms follow the behavior of the human and the animal. Take writing for example: In the beginning, people wrote messages on the sand with their fingers. However, they eventually found that writing on cave walls would last longer than writing on sand. They needed tools to help them record messages on the walls. Gradually, they went from sticks, to stones, to bones, then to a brush which led to the pen and finally laser pens. The previous inventions stimulated the next generation’s media. Now we are back to using the finger again. The behavior doesn’t change with the evolution of tools. The image and the form of the tool for writing is now disappeared. Why has this happened? What is the meaning of the existence of pen’s form and function? If the function and form disappear eventually, why should the form of the object look like what we have known? What is the affordance of an object in our time?

The Affordance of an Object
Previous usage experiences

To understand the affordance of an object, we should analyze how humans interact with the object by examining the form and images of the object related to human experience. My design question for this research is: when the image and form are separated, will the indexical meaning of the image and form still be delivered? I made a variety of boxes covered with different images and asked the participants to interact with boxes. Take the one with the image of the knob for example: The participants turned the object just like the way they would turn a real knob. People learn to use an object based on their experience. Upon encountering an unfamiliar thing, they always try to use their imagination to form a reasonable explanation. In this study, people interacted with the object by associating the image with their previous usage experiences.

Delightful Experiment
Making Conflict with Human Experience and the Affordance of the object

The affordance of a table is that it stands still and creates space to place things. If the table can run, how would people interact with it? I attempted to answer this with my table project. People cannot anticipate where it is going to run because it is triggered by animal behaviors. It is an organic interaction. Inspired from natural animal instincts, I built a device that is driven by animal behavior. I put a hamster in the device under the table equipped with wheels. The table moves based on the hamster. Thus, I created a conflict between human experience and the affordance of the object in order to see how people react to this kind of situation.

I want to reveal the behavioral interaction by seeing the emotional reaction that people elicit subconsciously. The participants are delighted by this animal behavior triggered device.

Stimulate the Imagination
Bridges the gap

Indeed, our experience influences our behavior interacting with the objects. The next step was to design an object to verify my findings. The object will encode human experience into the object’s behavior. “The teapot” is a project that shows this methodology. The box is covered with teapot images on each side, representing the six different angles of the teapot. It looks like a teapot, but the form is a box. When the participants saw the teapot box, they picked up the box how they would hold a real teapot. They also tried to pour tea into the cup box. At this moment, the box generated the sound of pouring water. In this experiment, the conflict between human experience and the affordance of the object generates and reward people’s creativity and imagination. In other words, the image of teapot and form make conflict with the participants’ previous usage experiences but their imagination bridges the gap between the usage experience and the affordance of the object. It motivates participants to use the teapot box as a real teapot, and the sound of pouring water triggers participants’ creativity. The participants feel delighted when they interact with it. By disturbing the routing of their experience, the Transbehavior object stimulates the participants’ imagination subconsciously, makes a profound effect on people, and creates a positive emotion. That is the key to bringing people new experiences and forming a new relationship with the object by encoding the human experience into the behavior.

Framing the world through biological behavior, people can perceive the world in a different way

Perceive the World through Animal eyes
Disrupt your daily routine

This image indicates how people react when they have the bird’s eye view. Animal’s behavior provides us with an effective concept of creating an emotion system of simple interaction. Studying their behavior provides us with an effective tool to influence the relationship between humans and the objects. Therefore, seeing and experiencing the world through Trans-behavior objects, I replaced the senses of human’s vision, and smelling with animal’s behaviors. In the other words, change the perception to sensing the environment by changing people’s interaction of behavior through animal behavior. The purpose is to disrupt your daily routine of how you normally see the world by disabling the sense they always use. Through animals’ behaviors, people can experience the world of animals and perceive the world in a different way. People would not see the world in the same manner. Something they previously take for granted will bring a new experience to extend their senses.

“D’oh!” the Vision
Navigate the space without see it

D’oh the Vision is a delightful object that is inspired by echolocation. The purpose of this behavior is to navigate space without using vision. This behavior can be found in bats, dolphins and some other animals. They navigate the world without using their vision. This helmet will not allow the participants to use their eyes to explore the environment. The different speeds of sound vibration in the helmet will tell participants the direction and location they are going. It may make the participants feel strange because they have to figure out direction and location by listening to the sound made from the speed of vibration. They will learn to trust the new sensing system. Once they can move around freely with this helmet, they will see the world as bats and dolphins do. They will find an amazing experience when extending the other senses to explore the world.

Sniff the Smell is an unexpected object that extends the human ability of smell into that of a dog’s. The act of smelling the ground is their natural instinct to search for territory and food. How many people have crawled and smelled the ground like the dogs do? The apparatus is a mask for breathing with a long tube but it is not the air that we usually take. The air from the ground travels up through the tube. When they use the device, the participants will be able to smell the ground. When the participants breathe, their breath will trigger the device to move forward so that the participants can smell the scents of different areas.

The metaphor delivers the meaning of a behavior

The structure of the language can be divied into three parts: object, action, and subject. The picture above shows a person pretending to fly in the snow. In certain cultures, people believe it delivers a message that she is happy like an angel. This is one metaphor. The metaphor delivers the meaning of a behavior. Whithout the metaphor, she may just look like she was waving.

Visualize Social Relationship
The behavior express their feeling

Using dogs as an example for the snow angel metaphor, we can examine the wagging tail. They use their tails to express their feelings. The speed and angle of tail waging represent different mood and social status with the ones they interact with. If they are scared or feel inferior, their tail will be hidden between their legs to indicate that they don’t want to fight. In addition, the dogs will lean their body toward the partners they trusted, implying their obedience.

Resonance with Human Culture
Pour tea for your superior

In some oriental cultures, the tea ceremony is a way to represent the social status. People need to pour tea for their superior, including the elderly, the boss, or the guests. You can tell the relationship amongst them through tea ceremony. Drinking tea becomes a behavioral interface to reinforce the relational hierarchy. Technology has been invented to assist this kind of ceremony and make sure decorum observed, such as “Karakuri Ningyo.”

Inspiration
Magic doll

Karakuri Ningyo was invented one hundred years ago in Japan. It is a robot designed to carry teacups to the people. Karakuri means “magic tricks” or “marvel device”. “Ningyo” means “puppet” or “doll”. This puppet was developed with human behavior to do magic/marvel tricks, entertaining the guests in the tea ceremony. When the host makes the tea and pours it into the teacup, Karakuri Ningyo will carry the cup full of tea to the guest. Once the guest picks up the teacup, Karakuri Ningyo will stop moving forward. After the guest empties the cup and gives it back to the puppet, the puppet will return back to the place where the host poured the tea.

Beyond the Hospitality
Reinforcing the meaning of deference

The affordance of a teapot, in any cultural setting, is allowing people to pour tea. If there are more affordances than that just pouring tea, it will generate an emotional bond as Karakuri Ningyo does. If the host wants to express his respect and hospitality to guests in the way that a dog shows obedience to his master, the teapot should have a behavior. By reinforcing the meaning of deference instinct from the behavior of the dog, I encode the meaning into the affordance of the teapot, through learned reinforcement, the teapot will not only show obedience with its owner but it will also show hospitality to others.

Transbehavior Design Proposal
Establish a relationship through animal behavior

The teapot project shows a simple behavior that we take it for granted. By placing a behavior in different context, we form a new relationship to the object. I created a new experience between people and the teapot. When the participants approach the teapot, it will orient its handle towards them and inviting them to pick it up. This behavior changes the affordance of the teapot and makes people associate themselves with a dog and its emotional relationship with the owner.

Using behaviors to influence behaviors through the objects

The process of my study in the Transbehavior design has three stages. The first stage is to insert a behavior deliberately into an object, which is the project of “the table is alive!” – the table is inserted the running behavior of the hamster. The purpose of this first level Transbehavior study is to make conflicts between human experience and the affordance from the object in order to stimulate the imagination. The second stage, I used foreign behavior to constraint people’s original behavior into the others. As seen in the projects- “D’oh! The vision” and ” Sniff! The Smell.” They extend the senses that people usually take for granted. This stage of the study is to make people to experience the world in a different way or through a different behavior in order to change their perception toward things they have before. Therefore, they can regain their sensibility toward the objects. The third stage of my study is to design a foreign behavior properly into an object by using the behavior as a cultural metaphor. For example, the teapot is designed to have the dog’s obedience behavior when seeing his/her master. The purpose of this study is to think about a question: will people establish a relationship with this object encoded with biological interaction that nurtured by our cultural metaphor? When others are trying to use media to change the world we are living in today, I try to explore a new opportunity to perceive the relationship between the world and ourselves.

Transbehaior can be socially transformative on a profound scale. We can realize the meaning of our existence in this world. Through understanding the meaning of our existence, we can find a better way to coexist with others and know how to interact with them. By using behaviors to influence behaviors through the objects, I believe it is a way to create a rich opportunity for new, imaginative relationships between objects and people. It encourages people to think about whether behavior can be a media.

A powerful design methodology is a new responsibility because new experiences are changing generated by this methodology does not automatically “progress”. However, the “bounding terms” of this methodology gives a lense for designers to form their creativity and imagination in a positive way that can influence our behavior. Indeed, behavior as media is unbounded: In human culture, it is the form of language. It is a concept that the behavior influence another behavior though media that makes we realize what our role of responsibility is. The responsibility can be related to the issues like the findings from our research at Superstudio. The world will actually be changed only if people change their behaviors and concepts.

Future direction
Investigate more about using behaviors as media

For my future direction, I would like to investigate more about using behaviors as media to explore the communication design in a real world. Transbehavior is the first step to take this into action. It is a strategy for new design thinking. All these examples and studies are to make the designers to understand Transbehavior is an easy and effective design methodology, which can be applied to various design disciplines. Designers can use this approach to come up with practical and fun designs to trigger the participants’ imagination and change their perception of the thing was. It will not degenerate our sensibility and bring meaningful interaction. I hope this open ending design mythology can help people to experience the story told by the object itself. The story told by the object is a new story for design and is a new story for humans.