The Faux Shaux

Having abandoned my initial project, I was pretty worried about falling behind, I met with Kate to express my worries and work around my creative-block.  The problem with the ideas I’d come up with was that they were either to simple/mundane/not interactive enough or they were too ambitious and unlikely to be finished by the end of the semester.  She evaluated the weaknesses of each of these ideas to help me consider the ingredients of a good idea.  Another piece I took away was to think of something that is already a part of my life, something I am already aquainted with, a problem I’d like to solve.

This reminded me of my fellow classmate, Michelle Mayer, who’s designing a light installation to resolve a junkie-hangout in her neighborhood.  It’s a great project because it benefits the community, not just herself.

In retrospect I remember making a hyperbole along the lines of “phonebooths are used like public toilets, if at all” during a conversation about kiosk culture in Pete Menderson’s Materials class.  That being said, how could I solve / react to this misuse of public utility?  The first idea that came to mind is to embarass the miterater, if you will, by projecting his face on the wall behind him.  He would undergo social repurcussions that he obviously sought to protect when he used the phonebooth to conceal his face and genitalia.  This could also tip-off any police officers that would not notice a shadowy figure, as opposed to a brilliant, large-scale projection.

The pee switch.  There are two pieces of sheet metal on the ground, as an open circuit (low-voltage), if someone urinates onto the metal, the resultant puddle/stream would close the circuit, which an IC would detect, turn on the webcam/digital camera concealed inside the phonebooth, which is transmitting to an LCD in the window behind him (alternative to a projector that would take time to start up).

Liquid Switch Success!

Liquid Switch from mike kelberman on Vimeo.