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Living Apart Together
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- A smart mirror for lovers in a long-distance relationship
By Weiting Chi & Jialing Li
My Role
User research and analysis, scheme discussion, Arduino infrared triggered coding, TouchDesigner processing for data control, Arduino data control, Kinect movement capture, video saving and playing.
Developed a smart mirror for long-distance communication and emotion transmission. Through this interactive art installation, people will be able to maintain and consolidate their long-distance relationships through more interesting, artistic, and powerful interactions
2020 the pandemic has slowed down
the pace of the world
The lockdown has emphasized the hurts
of loneliness
It brought us time to rethink the meaning
of relationship with our loves
1/4 of lovers
are in a long-distance relationship in China
3750,000 couples in the US,
and 785,000 in England and Wales
They are trying their best to resist the time
to wear out their emotions
There is always a need for new ways
to create meaningful interactions
to cherishing the right person of our life
Data source:
Survey Report on the Emotional State of Young Workers in China in 2018
U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 2017 Annual Social and Economic Supplement Office for National Statistics, UK
About
By this project, we tried to create a lite way to enhance the sense of presence for couples/lovers in long-distance relationships ( LDR ).
According to the research of ICHARS, it is usual to feel alone and lonely when you are at a distance from your significant other. These emotions of missing one’s partner every single day are very normal. Sometimes it is just the emptiness one may feel, and sometimes it is a loss of contact with the partner. This starts making people wonder whether they are close to their partner or not.
Therefore, we tried to create a way to make people in LDR know that they are not alone and their partner is there to back them up.
The Top 8 Challenges of A Long distance relationship
A survey conducted in Oct. 2018 by OnePall with a simple of 1000 Americans who have been in an LDR
Inspirations
LOVE TESTING
- ITP WINTER SHOW 2017 by IVY Huang, Ella Chung and Eva Chen
The designers believe love is not determined or limited by age, race, gender, or sexual preference. Every single person deserves love. Love is very abstract, and our love testing has transferred this abstract feeling into visualization art.
This project is based on P5.js Sketch, and Arduino Sensors cooperated. The designers have used a heart sensor and humidity sensor to test participants' heart rate from the fingertip and humidify the level of palm.
[ i miss your touch ] is a live collaboration between the participants and artists. The artwork responds to people's movements. PluginHUMAN affects, in real-time, live video streams from participants' webcams. People can instantly see the creative effects of their movements and interactions. They can also experience virtual touch. It makes people feel as if they are together in one space.
[ i miss your touch ]
- by PluginHUMAN (Dr. Betty Sargeant and Justin Dwyer, the artists)
An ongoing research experiment on the minimum amount of multisensory stimuli required to induce the Feeling of Presence (FoP) experience in participating visitors. FoP is a fleeting sensation often associated with neurological disorders or spiritual encounters. Yet, its experience among healthy individuals is scarcely researched.
Felt Presence
- by Naomi Lea at UCL Interactive Architecture Lab
Our Design Concept
• A smart mirror
• Functions and relationship of each part of the mirror
When the sensor senses B, it automatically triggers the screen to play A's image, and the camera starts recording B's actions.
B will see A's image on the screen and B's image in the mirror simultaneously.
The functional relationship of A is the same as that of B
• Mike & Nina’s Story
Mike and Nina are a long-distance couple who met in college. Mike went to Seattle for his master's degree and stayed, and Nina went to Shanghai after graduation. They have been in a long-distance relationship for nearly three years, and both are looking forward to moving to their partner's city in the future. Meanwhile, they also worried their relationship would be changed during the separation.
(GMT-8) 07:00
- Mike in Seattle
(GMT+8) 23:00
- Nina in Shanghai
(GMT+8) 07:00
- Nina in Shanghai
(GMT-8) 15:00
- Mike in Seattle
Waking up alone made Mike feel wrong and miss Nina a lot.
When he is washing, he finds Nina's shadow in the mirror.
Mike makes a body gesture of love for Nina.
This reminds him to text Nina.
After this, Mike felt better and went to work.
Nina wakes up alone in her Shanghai’s apartment
As soon as she got out of bed, she got Mike’s “good morning”
When she is watching, Mike’s “love” gestures appear in the mirror
Nina responds to Mike's shadow
She felt Mike was always at her side
The infrared sensor is triggered
The mirror is started playing the image left by Nina
The Camera is synchronously be turned on to record Mick's image
The infrared sensor is triggered
The mirror is started playing the image left by Mike
Camera is synchronously be turned on to record Nina's image
Visual Prototype
The visual prototype is made in Touchdesigner software and Kinect Azure. The main components and logical relationships used in Touchdesigner are as follows: Particle components generate randomly moving particles, Feedback forms the tailing effect of particles, and Ramp gives variable color effects; then, with the help of Matte components, the portrait captured by Kinect Azure Combined, together constitute the presentation of visual effects.
Kinect Azure
Touchdesigner software interface
Arduino Prototype
1. Design the circuit diagram for the project.
2. Connecting the PIR sensors and LED light with Arduino.
4. Adjust the sensitivity of the PIR sensor to the most suitable level.
3. Coding on Arduino.
5. Make sure the blue LED lights up when the PIR sensor detects human motion. Finish connecting.
Touchdesigner Control
In this project, the PIR sensor is the input of information about human movements. The PIR sensor will trigger two activities at the same time if it detects human movements. One of the activities is to play the video of the user's partner automatically. The other is to capture the user's motion using Azure Kinect and automatically generate a video that can be sent back to the user's partner. If the sensor can not detect human movements, those two activities will stop immediately.
While Touchdesigner receives data, it can not use data directly to detect and those two activities. A preprocessing of the set of the data table is needed. We need to select useful data and record them by using data operators. Then, create CHOP channels with data from the data operator to apply a filter to smooth the channels. Finally, we can export channels to a parameter that can control the two activities.
-o
Testing
The prototype was built in a classroom with a glass wall, with the purpose of restoring the expected effect of the design as much as possible. Since the A-side and B-side of the design are extremely similar, the prototype chooses one end (tester B-side) for construction and testing.
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