Introduction:
In this project me and my classmates were assigned to analyze a source in a system. I picked “communication” as my system, however my source for communication was not words or gestures; it is COLOR.
In 2016, I worked on a Lightbox which was built in order to create a dream-reality in between state with colors and vibrations. The vibrations were sent to facial bones through haptic motors connected on the end of ear phones. The color scale was customizable according to 4 different feelings, and every feeling had it’s own color scheme. However, according to the feedback I received, I realized that colors do not create the same emotion in every person. Color and emotional output can differ in every different culture, every religion and many other daily life circumstances.
Color is not objective, color is really subjective. So when I was starting to work on my new project, I realized that I have to be communicating with as many people as possible, my first idea was to create a nature integrated communal seating area that can interact with people and give color as an output.
IDEA #1 The communal seating area idea, Rhino sketch :
While I was constructing this digital sketch, my main focus and inspiration was the color theory drawings that were done by Josef Albers. Josef Albers is a German color theorist who is most known for his work at Bauhaus design school.
Josef Albers Art Work:
After designing the communal space and spending some time on thinking about the interactions, data input and output, I realized that designing a communal sitting area would not help me to achieve my main goal of understanding color and finding the relationship between COLOR-EMOTIONS and ENVIRONMENT. So I decided to change my idea.
IDEA #2 Pulse Check / the device :
For the design aspect of the device, I decided to transition Josef Albers’s color theory box drawings in to a stand alone Lightbox that separated in to 4 different divisions that has customizable LED strips integrated in it.
How does it work?
Let’s say we are in a lecture hall right now, 100 people are participating in class. Teacher asks us…
“HOW DO YOU FEEL RIGHT NOW?”
We go to our phones and connect to the IP address that our teacher gave us. When we open the website, we will see different colors and checkboxes next to them, and we see a input box with submit button right next to it. What we need to do is…
“CHOOSE ONE COLOR AND TYPE DOWN HOW WE FEEL”
And we submit it.
After the instructor gathered the data, few minutes later, the input data will turn in to a pie graph chart. The most picked color will get the center box and the least selected one will be on the outer square.
How is this helpful?
Color theory, color studies, emotions, feelings, weather, environment and location everything matters while we are picking a color for our mood. By getting mass input from multiple audiences, the connection between color-feelings and environment can be analyzed. We can all put some salt in to the soup of color theory. We can analyze the brilliant connection between color and our brain.
What am I using?
Arduino
It is the brain of the physical device. Arduino gets the data from IP address over personal computer and converts the output in to a ASCII numbering system and communicates with the LED strip arrays.
p5.js
Javascript sketch is running on our IP and coded with p5.js. The javascript sketch is the only form of connection to the arduino. We gather the data over p5 and send it to arduino over p5serial.js.
Work in Progress
The project is in progress, it is going to be my final project as well. Thank you. Emre.