Tangible Interfaces---An Design Investigation of How to Embed Setiment into Materials

Ongoing global changes bring new challenges requiring new concepts, tools and materials. International and interdisciplinary participation are key elements within the wider global design community, when responding to design issues, and require fresh perspectives and approaches. The key objective that underpins this proposal is the exploration of materiality beyond its typical scope, and the subsequent innovational materials that can be applied to everyday products. This project aims to seek out, through Materials Science exploration, potential characteristics that furnish ‘sentiment’ or ‘empathy’ in materials; or in other words, this is an investigation of 'meaning/s' that can be embedded into materials in order to 'communicate' with the user at an emotional level. The development of a research method for this unique project requires a meaningful conversation between Materials Science research, artisanal techniques and cognitive psychology to harness the creative tensions between art and science. A contradiction in terms has supplied this project’s second aim and question: how can designers create mass-produced artifacts that are unique, yet communicate with users on an emotional level? In order to answer this question, focus will be placed on one sentiment appraisal type to elicit the characteristics that define sentiment within that group and an intuitive mapping of the word ‘sentiment’ will be conducted. A ‘Tangible Interfaces’ Workshop will be conducted to investigate, develop and extract potential applications from the kaleidoscope of possibilities.

Project ID:PB9910-0116
External Project ID:NSC99-2218-E182-006