start

Indigitizable

Collectivism

Space

Peer inspiration

External Motivation

Presence

Senses

Taste

Distance (3D)

Smell

Surrounding

Touch

Intimacy

Chosen Project from NXT MUSEUM:
Habitat, 2020
Heleen Blanken

Nature

Physical health

Movement

Mental health

Unity

Health

Muscle state

What inspired you?
What data this project represents?
What the connection is to our theme 'the undigitisible'?

HABITAT is a data-driven installation It documents and visualizes natural growth based on 3D scans from the natural history archives of Leiden’s Naturalis. HABITAT is a collaboration with NAIVI, who developed the custom-built software for the installation.

The work illustrates the complex exchange between humanity and their natural environment, raising questions on how we contemplate ideas of nature trying to give an alternate vision.

The work is controlled through hidden sensors that use a large set of parameters. The mapped out space and the interaction with the sensors largely determines the 'state' of the 'objects' within the application. The environments are randomly modulated over time and can be influenced by the presence of the visitor.

The result is a spatial installation where graphics, sculpture, sensors, and soundscapes come together in an extensive abstracted experience.
HABITAT is cofunded by Stimuleringsfonds and Stichting Stokroos and supported by Naturalis Biodiversity Center and Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid: Revive

Research to the sense of online solidarity
------------------------

Which senses do we use while interacting
----------------------------

Lack of controle
----------------
Being in an online call is different as being in actual physical space with someone

ex. If you are in an argument with someone it is hard to ignore it in real life.
but in an online call you can just mute or leave the chat.

The controle over your sight in someone else's space.

Lack of senses
--------------
- 3D surrounding sound
- eyecontact
- Smell
- feeling of distance (through ex. warmth)
- body language (posture & arm movement)

Possible experiments
--------------------

Eye sight
--------------
- Connect the flashlight to your head, to track your eyesight.
- Online eye tracking software (Camie Roos)
- Animoji experiment

Goal of our research
--------------------
"How can we make the digital way of interaction more engaging through better senses of solidarity"

Reference
--------------------

Kronos: The Attention-Aware System //
Camie Roos
-------------------------------------------

Eye-Tracking Informatics //
Seiko Mikami
---------------------------------------------
Participants in this installation sit on chairs wearing Pupil Core and face a large screen of a three-dimensional virtual space. Visual structures are generated in real-time on the screen as a response to the participant's gaze creating a tight feedback loop between participant/viewer and art.

The Psychological Explanation for When You Feel Like You’re Being Watched //
Susie Neilson
-------------------------------------------
"What TN’s study shows us may explain some of the “sixth sense” feeling we have about being watched: Our brains are doing a lot of work under the surface of our conscious gaze"

"We may feel tingly, but the source of the tingling stems from the belief we’re being watched, not the watching itself; it’s something you’ve willed into being through your own imagination.We may feel tingly, but the source of the tingling stems from the belief we’re being watched, not the watching itself; it’s something you’ve willed into being through your own imagination."

"Our brains spend a disproportionate amount of energy wondering whether people are staring at us – so much so that there’s a theory that we have an entire neurological network devoted to this activity."

"that we have a large white area around our pupils and irises, known as the sclera"

"gaze has evolved into an extremely powerful tool for indicating interest, resources, danger, lust, and even more complex emotions like love."

"Eye contact can also signal other kinds of connection, he added: “Direct gaze is often a social cue that the other person wants to communicate with us, so it’s a signal for an upcoming interaction.”

NOTES
--------------
- Creating eye tracking software.
the moment you are distracted from the topic/subject/presentation your screen gets 'distorted'.

- Something to create the 'feeling of being watched'. referring to the 'psychic staring effect'.

- What if the camera gave you more input of it being active?

-What if every single participant has an individual camera. (so the teacher has 20x cameras). maybe even put name tags on the webcams so the webcam becomes the identity of a student.

Psychic staring effect // Wikiepedia
---------------------------------------------
These mental processes occur subconsciously and utilize information from peripheral vision; this may contribute to the sensation that a "sixth sense" alerted the person being gazed upon.[14]

Google //
Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins, 2010
---------------------------------------------
Commissioned by the Martin Prosperity Institute in Toronto, Google is a sculptural installation composed of two large “googly” eyes mounted on a wall. Hidden cameras inside the sculpture watch, track, and record people as they pass by, adding a potentially sinister element to the humour offered by the googly-eye form. The title of the piece, Google, acknowledges the ways in which the search engines watch and record user data for ambiguous reasons. With this work, Marman and Borins combine humour and surveillance technologies to highlight how personal surveillance and data collection by governments and corporations occur in our physical and virtual everyday lives, and to question whether we should trust them.

Google // A sixth sense? How we can tell that eyes are watching us
-------------------------------------------
our eye structure is distinct from almost all other species. The area of our eye surrounding our pupil (the sclera) is very large and completely white. This makes it very easy to discern the direction of someone’s gaze. In many animals, by contrast, the pupil takes up a lot of the eye, or the sclera is darker. This is thought to be an adaptation to camouflage the eye in predators – cleverly hiding the direction of gaze from potential prey.

Notes: So the important aspect of the "feeling that people stare at you" is the fact that we can easily detect where people are looking at. If we can digitize that feeling then we can recreate the feeling that you're in the middle point.

https://theconversation.com/a-sixth-sense-how-we-can-tell-that-eyes-are-watching-us-65661

Google // Alfred L. Yarbus
-------------------------------------------
Yarbus pioneered the study of saccadic exploration of complex images, by recording the eye movements performed by observers while viewing natural objects and scenes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_L._Yarbus

https://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2130754

Google // Eye of Horus, Open Source Eye Tracking Assistance
---------------------------------------------

https://hackaday.io/project/6638-eye-of-horus-open-source-eye-tracking-assistance

Google // Eye-tracking Group at Department of Geoinformatics Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic

---------------------------------------------

http://eyetracking.upol.cz/students-projects/

Google // Eye-tracking Group at Department of Geoinforma
--------------

Designing experiments for Digital Distance
------------------------

Conclusion from our research
-------------------------------
We think that the feeling of actually being watched by individuals is lost during calls.

We think it is interesting that
1000 people can watch through one 'Eye' that being a webcam.

It made us wonder, would the interaction feel different if everyone had their own webcam 'eye' in the space to look through.

Our NXT museum visit
------------------------

Mindmap about the indigitalizable
------------------------

|
V

-->---->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->

We defined the following research question:

"WHAT ARE THE POSSIBILITIES TO DIGITIZE THE FEELING OF DISTANCE IN CONVERSATIONS?"

Other questions that came to us:
- What happens if you don't feel presence during conversation
- What is 'the feeling of distance'.
- How does personalizing the viewing point of the conversation change the interaction.
- How does the user of the webcam right now influences us in the conversation with multiple people.

Experiment #01
-------------------------------

With experiment #01 we want to find out how a personal camera influences the interaction between the person in front of the camera, and the person behind the camera. Can we create the feeling of being looked at?

PLAN:
----------------------------------------------
1. Create a set-up with 4 smartphones which video calling our participants.

2. The smartphones are attached to a chair (stoel) which are positioned so the person in front of the cameras is in the center.

3. in order to create an conversation with the 4 participants we thought it is a good idea to play a game: Hangman, where the presenter can curate the call.

4. While playing we'd like the participants to track some interaction. How many times is the participant being looked at? How many times did the participant get the attention when it wanted it? etc.

5. Afterwards we'd like the participant to fill in our questionnaire, with more open questions about how they experienced it.

Creating the setup
----------------------------------------------
We had to test the technologies and make sure that there wouldn't be any echos.

TEST TEST TEST
----------------------------------------------

On the spot
----------------------------------------------

Questions we had After prototype #01
-------------------------------

On the spot
---------------------------------
We played with 4 people with a setup where the presenter and the whiteboard is central to the viewer.

These are questions we had after the experiment. We're interested in answering these.

User.
1. Why can it be stressful for the participant?
2. The participant had to be more active to get the attention and give their answer to the host. What does that mean?
3. It was harder to get the attention, Why was it harder and what can we do with that?
4. Does the lack of seeing/hearing each other influences the participants?
5. Did being less in control of what the host sees influences the activeness of the participants?

Meeuwis (outsider):
Because it is was sometimes too hectic it was hard to process the incoming information that the participants gave to the host. How can this be resolved?

Peter (host):
It was hard to see which participant was talking.

-->---->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->

Results
----------------------------------------------

|
V

-->---->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->

Presentation Habitat (2020) Peet&meeuw
-------------------------------

What inspired us?
When we walked into this installation you could feel the sense of nature, that the video was created by earth almost. But it wasn't. It was created by data & the digital world.

What kind of data?
3D scans of biodiversity movement from people at the museum.

The undigitisble?
It reminds you of nature but there is something missing, but what? That is the interesting point to investigate in the coming weeks.

Designing experiments for
Breakout room
------------------------

"WHAT ARE THE POSSIBILITIES TO DIGITIZE THE FEELING OF DISTANCE IN CONVERSATIONS?"

Experiment #02

With experiment #02 We want to create a "breakout" room. It's a physical space where users can sit and can communicate with each other.

plan
----------------------------------------------
Step 1: we have 4 phones, each phone is one person (same with experiment #1). The phones get attached to a chair.

Step 2: We place these chairs in a square (in the map right). behind every chair there is a personal assistant. They can move the chairs viewing direction to the left or right.

Step 3: The person that views from the phone camera has the control to talk/communicatie to their assistant. So for example: if user 1 wants to look at user 2 he or she says: turn my viewing point to the right, and the assistant turns the chair to the right. Here user 1: has full control in what they see.

step 4: The user cannot communicate between each other with sound. Only with the view. We give them some games. They play it.

Step 5: gain data and insights from this experiment.

A

B

General notes:
* In a classroom one person stands central (teacher)
* We don't need a conversation leader or someone that stands central.
* What kind of data do we want to get out of the next experiment?
* How can we digitalize the space the best in a online meeting?
* What is the feeling of distance
* How does personalizing the viewpoint influences the conversation.
* How does using one webcam influences the conversation?

*How can we gain answers for these question by the user?
* How can we make the answers measurable?
* How can we create a setting where we can get these questions answered?

Visual Reference

|
V

What do we need?

-->---->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->

Roadmap
------------------------

Space -> Van Nelle (Studio Space)
Data -> Textual Data about the experience + Video recording
Data: Where/How -> Online enquete w/ open questions + 360 Video Camera
Skills -> Communication Skills -> Webdesign skills
Support -> Arjen!? + Interaction Station
Trips -> School + Van Nelle
Deliverables -> Website to join + A physical meeting room

- Zelf de controle hebben.
- Camera richten op een persoon > dan draait het om de non verbale communicatie.
E: Gesprek met alleen oogcontact ben je veel meer gefocust.
A: Is het al genoeg puur met alleen oogcontact? Zonder het hele gezicht?
E: Segway voorbeeld, met ruimte spelen
A: meer isoleren anders wordt het moeilijk om conclusies eruit te trekken.
E: Meer scenario's uitwerken > meer onderzoeksgericht. Bijvoorbeeld experiment met alleen ogen, schermen etc.
- Vragen stellen over specifieke onderwerpen.
Kwalitieve interviews.
- Hoe kan je een nul meting creëren.
- Vergelijken met real life.
> galgje als voorbeeld.
- Vragen stellen = geen gesloten vragen.
- Bijvoorbeeld 'in hoeverre'
inleiden aan de participants = waarom doen we dit?
- Proberen op teams.
- Proberen met bedrijven.
- Roadmap > kalander opzetten.
- User stories.

-->---->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->

Feedback: Eefje & Arjan 2020.11.06

-->---->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->

Feedback: Jeroen
2020.11.06

- Waar zitten de telefoons in?
- Waarom alleen via gebaren?
- Wordt het dan een soort van performance?
> hoe communiceren ze met de assistant?
> Wat voor problemen neemt videobellen met zich mee?
> moet het een commercieel product worden?
> Hoeft niet mag speculatief of performance worden.
> Works-chop toepassen.
> Wat gebeurd er als het allemaal zo blijft?
> Hoe gaat de communicatie in de toekomst?
> Heeft iedereen een grotere telefoon of hebben ze ene butler?
> Bepaald script aan de participants geven.
> Welke situatie willen we vergelijken?
> Iedereen weet hoe normaal contact is.
> gaan mensen switchen naar elkaar?
> Sessie hardop zeggen
> Sessie met oortjes.
>Verdelen van de taken.
> Specialisatie.
> Wat voor communicatie levert het op?

-->---->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->

Notities
2020.11.13

> Wat is de toevoeging om het fysiek te maken?
> Waarom miniatuur?
Wat voor belang heeft het om tastbaar te zijn?

Product = niet het resultaat
Verhaal = het resultaat

Taakverdeling
---------------------------------------------
Meeuwis:
0: discord/digitale omgeving
0: Enquete vragen

Peter:
0: Nulmeting
0: Communicatie met kandidaten.
0: Enquete vragen.

Designing experiments for
Breakout room
------------------------

-->---->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->

|
V

C

Possible examples

-->---->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->

Hybrid breakout room

Hybrid
------
Why: Nostalgia
Target audience: Studenten spaces. Teachers

(why)Goal= Give students more control so they feel more involved.

(how)Idea= Create a hybrid environment which is easily tweak-able to demonstrate multiple solutions

Prototype #3

Some visual reference

-->---->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->

Sketching the device

-->---->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->

Sketching the device

It was our goal to make a device holder for our physical break-out room. We first bought 4 DC motors who after a good talk with Bridgit (interaction station) it turned out that the purchase was super unnecessary. But that doesn't kill the pret. We got to learn about a other motor, which is a lot better for our purpose the: MG 996R. We got it to work and are very excited to work further on this device holder.

-->---->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->

Roadmap

-->---->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->

26.11.2020 Coding & thinking

All the mechanics were brought in!

Meeuwis figuring out how to let the servo go to left to right with the mouse controls

-->---->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->

The service tools we need to test our prototype.

-->---->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->

Experience prototypes

-->---->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->

Sketches & feedback