Nahana, Peter and I have met a few times to discuss our project, and we seem to have reached a general agreement about where we’re headed. We’re trying to create a device that allows people to communicate nonverbally across a distance, conveying a sense of presence that just doesn’t seem possible with existing devices like phones or even video chat. We want the device to invite and encourage usage over a period of time (think of it as a wave of communication rather than a short spike like a text message), and we want it to feel intimate and personal.

We’ve been building on the thoughts we drew from our first observation assignment– thinking about how people use communication devices like telephones and smart phones. We’ve also been obsering the ways that people interact with people they care about our their pets. Here are a few things I’ve noticed…

• People sometimes steal glances at each other without the other noticing.
• People who seem very serious or macho otherwise are willing to move their faces very close to puppies and make all sorts of cooing noises.
• Once people start petting a dog or cat, they can’t resist ruffling the fur at least a little bit.
• When someone is leaning his/her head on her partner’s shoulder, he/she will generally try to move closer to the partner’s neck.
• People holding hands often intertwine their fingers or squeeze intermittently.

A lot of the observations we’ve made for this project have been based on personal experience– what is it that we miss when we’re not able to share a space with someone we care about? For me it’s a sense of quiet presence. One of my closest friends lives in New Orleans. I talk to her fairly often on the phone, but when we’re in the same city we’ll spend hours together rarely talking, working on our individual projects. We’re cementing something about our friendship that way, but it’s not based on verbal communication. So, how can we convey something like this when we’re not in the same place?

Our group has started talking about developing pairs of small handheld devices that would help to convey some of the more subtle aspects we pick up on from our loved ones, whether they’re friends, lovers, or family. We would like each object to be small enough to hold in your hand or put in your pocket, and we would like it to be pleasurable to hold and vaguely like a little creature with some life of its own. We’re planning to cover each object in (thrifted) fur. Ideally, each object will measure the pulse of the person holding it and convey that rhythm to someone holding the device’s partner. In order to initiate a conversation between the objects, the first person will need to squeeze their device and hold it for a period of time. As their pulse is conveyed, they can talk to their device, causing the other device to surge a bit in its pulsing.