Working towards a final installation for this minor Interactive Environments, our design team has been focused on the goal of connecting people (bringing them in contact with each other) through interaction with our installation.

Inspired by the way the Freqtric Drums lets people physically touch each other we came up with the idea of ‘human chains’; having two contact points that need to be connected through a chain of humans. Since it was debatable if people would actually chain with each other in an open public space we did a small user test that… failed. The threshold to interact with our installation was too high (we were close to begging them to interact with it) and the reward too low (ah it makes sound… now let’s get back to lunch). Also a sound output isn’t really desired since the location for the final installation is a large college hall, which means that students will be studying next to it.

So we started experimenting with different outputs. This time inspired by the ‘Fluid Dress’ also seen @ Ars Electronica 2011 we are now testing with a hypnotizing tubing display as an output, hopefully working towards an immersive environment of tubing in which fluids will start flowing when you interact/connect with it.