The Simple Solution

In 2007 I completed a fun project that I call “Social Murmurs.” I recently had arrived home from living in Brooklyn for the summer and was interested in some of the behaviors I noticed from people around me while sitting in public; such as waiting for subway trains. Some people seemed shy or concerned when someone else sat next to them, while other people seemed irritated and upset. Commonly, couples sat next to each other; while strangers would place an empty seat between them. I found these efforts to control their personal space interesting. I wanted to force their inner thoughts to the surface and make people consider their responses.

While in New York, I had my first opportunity to work with an Arduino Microcontroller, already familiar with Processing I was really interested in how I could use an Arduino and some basic electronics to enhance my projects. That summer my friends at The Studio for Interactive Media and at Interaction Lab at RockwellGroup helped answer a lot of questions and really inspire me.

When I returned back to Minneapolis to finish up another semester at MCAD I found that I had to scale back my ideas, due to time allowed for execution and having only myself to rely on. At that point, using multiple capacitance sensors attached to a bench were a little out of my range, so I went digging.

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