Psychic Printer
TAICHI'23 Poster
How will our interactions change when objects can communicate their emotions and thoughts?
In our quest to transcend mere conceptual speculation, we aim to create an immersive experience of "presence within possible worlds" with the "Psychic Printer."
We recognize that current speculative designs largely direct our focus outwards, either towards the future or the 'other', but rarely prompt us to introspect, realizing inward, self-reflective speculation. Our Psychic Printer is more than just a printer; it's a medium that, by melding the perspectives of objects with real human experiences, blurs the boundaries between people and things, facilitating our projection into the world of objects.
Our experiment began with Instagram, selecting commonplace items like cups, donuts, and clocks. Each participant was asked to provide content from their social profiles, including posts and diaries. Subsequently, we utilized text generators to produce speculative texts related to these objects based on keywords and themes from the records provided, thereby crafting object narratives.
We found that beyond depicting an object's current function, its narrative can be enriched with sci-fi elements, expanding participants' perceptions of these objects. For instance, the story and context of a modern-day cup might differ dramatically from that of a future cup.
Through iterative testing and refinement, we discovered that incorporating factual descriptions into narratives reduced resistance from participants, making them more receptive to the sci-fi elements within the stories. Moreover, we identified several sentence structures with intriguing potential. For example, a narrative about a cup read: "I am developing a 'gentle' ability. I succeeded yesterday, and I aim to continue today." Such structures are often employed in guided imagery therapy.
The Psychic Printer aims not only to give voice to objects but also to challenge our existing perceptions of them. It encourages us to view the objects around us from different angles and to deeply explore their "possible worlds."
