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Problem Statement:
How to use digital technology to make artwork in the urban space context is always a question that keeps us thinking. We think that a good digital public art should be able to not only serve as the medium of social interaction but make the space, where it is, accessible to everybody as well.
Abstract:
Make a wish by a cellphone and spread good karma to your beloved ones. Tree is a symbol of eternity and long life in Asian culture. Therefore, people in Asian countries worship trees just as they worship other gods. Besides going to a temple, people also write notes and knot them on the tree to wish good luck for themselves and their beloved ones. Taking advantage of SMS, Cellwish provides people a different user experience to make a wish. Users textmessage their wishes and the computer will visualize messages as 3D objects and shown on the "tree".
User Research:
Location: The corner between Waverly PL and Broadway.
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Photographied from Broadway |
Photographied from Waverly PL |
This place is technically part of NYU campus although NYU doesn't really have a campus.Usually, people who walk pass that corner are NYU students, professionals
who are working near that area and residents who live around Washington Square Park area.
We interviewd 8 subjects who walked pass there and find some common things among them:
- All the subjects use cell phone and most(7/8) use SMS daily.
- Most of the subjects(7/8) love New York since this city always has interesting stuff going on everyday.
- Most of the subjects(6/8) have close family members or friends who live far away from New York.
- 5 subjects know what public art is. 2 were not very clear until we gave an example. 1 subject is not interested in art at all.
Personas:
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- 28 years old
- Working in financial company
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From China
- Single
- Like fancy cell phone
- Most of her family is in China
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- 19 years old
- NYU Undergraduate Student
- Single
- Cincinnati, OH
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Like textmessging his college buddies.
- His parents live in Cincinnati.
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- 35 years old
- Chef of a restaurant in Mahattan
- Single but live with boyfriend
- New Yorker
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Use cell phone all the time and like new things
- Most family members don't live far from city |
Behavioral Characteristic
Yan is like one of many international people who get degree in New York and then continue to work there. Her parents are retired and live in China now. She calls her parents at least once a week. She always feels sorry about being away from her parents.
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Behavioral Characteristic
Rob is a shy boy and currently studying in NYU as an undergraduate student. He calls his parents usually once a month. He likes blonde girls but for some reasons, he never manages to date with any one of them. |
Behavioral Characteristic
Jenny is a typical New Yorker who likes new technology and art. She goes to museum once a month and also subscribes to Wired magazine. |
User Senarios:
A. Jenny is in a fundraising party for the Katrina in New Orleans. She has a very good friend Lucy in New Orleans and sufferring the Katrina. When she sees the Cellwish, she is like "Oh, that's interesting. Let me send a wish to Lucy. Hope she is doing well." At the same time, she donates 5 dollars via this system since Cellwish gets 5 dollar from her Paypal account everytime she makes a wish.
B. Yan always feels sorry about not being with her parents. Her job keeps her very busy but she always makes a call to her parents every weekend to make sure both of them are doing well. One day, Yan passes by "Cellwish" and sees one "message" on the "tree" which says "Happy birthday, daddy". "Oh my gosh, it's my father's birthday today." Then she takes out her cell phone, puts down her wish and send out through her cell phone. Soon a wish "爸爸生日快乐" shows up on the tree.
C. Every Thursday, Rob always sees a very cute blonde girl with a pink hat walking on the broadway when he finishes his Theatre Production class. He is certain that this girl is an NYU student since once he saw the girl carry an NYU athlete's bag. So today he decides to leave a message on "Cellwish". He hopes that the girl will see it. " I like your pink hat, girl. "
Development:
Technical Notes:
The system has two parts: the front end and back end. In the back end, there is a Perl script running on a remote server, which downloads those text messages from an email account. At the same time, all those messages are also saved in a MySQL database. In the front end, there’s a max/msp application communicating with the perl script to get the latest text messages. Every time there is a message comes in, a 3D object (created in MAYA) will be loaded into the program.
Diagram:
Photo Documentation:
Video Documentation:
Notes For Future Development:
1. This project brings an interesting challenge to us -- cross culture design. Based on the testing, quite a few people are not very interested in this project until we told them the concept that behind it. We did put the description besides the project but it seems not to be working the way that we planned. Maybe in the future, we should modify Cellwish to make more sense to audience, such as putting it in an asian community.
2. Fundraising event could be a nice chance to set up our project. Like last year the katrina in New Oleans.
3. There are many cell phone retailing stores in China. Some of them are very fancy such as Nokia's, Samsung's. Cellwish can be placed there since naturally people will use cell phone.
4. It'd be cool if there is an online version of Cellwish Tree. People in the world can see the wish through internet.
Featured By:
ITP winter show 2005 in New York University
MobileCowboys in Neitherland
Textually.org
More featured articles can be found via Google
Contact:
Yu-Chen Chiu ll http://www.yuhenchiuvideology.com
Kuan Huang ll http://www.hawk-huang.com |