Karmen Franinovic

Zürcher Hochschule der Künste | ZHdK · Department of Design

From the grotesque pavilions hidden in sixteenth century Italian gardens to the temporary structures in public space in the 70s and recent digitally augmented environments, architectures of play have long been designed to engage explorative experiences. The uncertainty of play allows us to probe new behaviors, to poke into the boundaries of subject...

This paper describes Hydroactive Polymers (HAPs), a novel way of combining shape-changing Electroactive Polymers (EAPs) and water for potential design and architectural explorations. We present a number of experiments together with the Fluid Morphologies installation, which demonstrated the materials through an interactive and sensory experience. W...

Electroactive polymers (EAP) are a promising material for shape changing interfaces, soft robotics and other novel design explorations. However, the uptake of EAP prototyping in design, art and architecture has been slow due to limited commercial availability, challenging high voltage electronics and lack of simple fabrication techniques. This pape...

The theoretical movement of New Materialisms claims that society has to think differently about the way it treats our common material environment. The conception of matter as something active and transforming is at the core of these proposed changes. But in order to have an impact, conceptual frameworks must be accompanied by materially engaged pra...

Researchers and practitioners in the trading zone of art and science have been experimenting with human-made ecosystems involving a variety of biological, chemical, technical and aesthetic aspects. While microorganisms are always a part of such systems, most often they don’t attract human attention. And if they are considered or consciously integra...

In this paper, we discuss the opportunities and challenges of creating responsive environments with Electroactive Polymers (EAPs). Our previous research on tools and methods for EAPs enabled us to develop two public installations: SOLO and Electric Animal Plant. Going beyond the demonstration of EAPs, these projects explore the aesthetics and inter...

Physical contexts, artifacts and materials have a big influence on the way children are enabled and encouraged in their play activities, especially in playgrounds. Designers and educators focus on formal and visual qualities of the playground, neglecting the potential of sound. Although sonic activities are common everyday phenomena in playgrounds...

This paper presents the concept and a case study of a robject, a robotic entity embedded in an everyday object. Robjects use the affordance of the original object to ensure an efficient interaction and a high acceptance. The example of the ranger robot shows how this approach can be applied to a domestic environment. We explore the integration of a...

Materials play a vital role in tangible interaction design. However, the materials are often used passively, as elements to be actuated by ready-made electronic components rather than inherently active parts of an interactive system in their own right. In this paper, we challenge that approach through a series of material experiments involving elec...

Die Debatte um »Künstlerische Forschung« hat einen hohen Grad an Differenzierung erreicht, sei es in ihrer allgemeinen, theorieorientierten Dimension, sei es auf der Ebene der Praxis des künstlerischen Forschens selbst. Alles deutet darauf hin, dass sich die Künstlerische Forschung an der Schwelle zu einer Institutionalisierung befindet. Ziel des B...

We present the design approach and evaluation of our prototype called "Ranger". Ranger is a robotic toy box that aims to motivate young children to tidy up their room. We evaluated Ranger in 14 families with 31 children (2-10 years) using the Wizard-of-Oz technique. This case study explores two different robot behaviors (proactive vs. reactive) and...

An overview of emerging topics, theories, methods, and practices in sonic interactive design, with a focus on the multisensory aspects of sonic experience. Sound is an integral part of every user experience but a neglected medium in design disciplines. Design of an artifact's sonic qualities is often limited to the shaping of functional, representa...

This paper reports on emotions felt by users manipulating a computationally and acoustically augmented artifact. Prior studies have highlighted systematic relationships between acoustic features and emotions felt when individuals are passively listening to sounds. However, during interaction with real or computationally augmented artifacts, acousti...

The perceived affordances of an everyday object guide its user toward habitual movements and experiences. Physical actions that are not immediately associated with established body techniques often remain neglected. Can sound activate those potentials for action that remain latent in the physicality of an object? How can the exploration of underuse...

cote interne IRCAM: Serafin11a

In this paper, we address issues of technologically mediated enactive experience with and within architec-tural contexts, and the ways in which it may affect our relationships to constructed surroundings. We present the conceptual ideas and design development of the Hinge Dimension project, an interactive architecture which is activated and transfo...

This paper reports on an approach to the design of continuous sonic feedback in tangible interfaces, and on quantitative evaluation methods intended to guide such design tasks. The issues it addresses may be of central relevance to areas of the emerging discipline of sonic interaction design that have begun to address the unique problems of designi...

"¿Dónde están los artistas?" se exclamó Hiroshi Ishii, profesor del Media Lab del MIT, dirigiéndose a los participantes de un debate en la conferencia sobre los factores humanos en los sistemas informáticos, que en 2008 tuvo lugar bajo el lema "Arte. Ciencia. Equilibrio". A menudo los aspectos estéticos de una experiencia interactiva se perciben co...

Sensorimotor knowledge is acquired through physical interaction with our surroundings. Activities such as drinking or biking must be learned through the body. Once this knowledge is acquired, such activities appear as intuitive, natural and automatic (Bargh 1999). Swiss philosopher and psychologist jean Piaget argued that sensorimotor learning is i...

Conceptions of the city as a multi-layered service infrastructure have been reflected in past visions of the city, such as in the work of Archigram and that of Situationism. The core idea has been readily applied to experimental and commercial developments related to mobile technology, and has resulted in a spectrum of applications that have achiev...

We present a floor tile designed to provide the impression of walking on different ground materials, such as gravel, carpet, or stone. The device uses affordable and commercially available vibrotactile actuators and force sensors, and as such might one day be cost-effectively used in everyday environments. The control software is based on a lumped...

Sonic Interaction Design (SID) is an emerging field that is positioned at the intersection of auditory display, ubiquitous computing, interaction design, and interactive arts. SID can be used to describe practice and inquiry into any of various roles that sound may play in the interaction loop between users and artifacts, services, or environments,...

"Where are the artists?" asked Hiroshi Ishii, a professor at MIT Media Lab, adressing a panel at the 2008 conference on human factors in computing systems, this year entitled Art.Science.Balance. The question reflected the overall atmosphere of the event and referred to more general issues of aesthetics which are buried by problems of evaluation, f...

"On són els artistes?", s'exclamà Hiroshi Ishii, profesor del Media Lab del MIT, en adreçar-se als participants d'un debat a la conferència sobre els factors humans en els sistemes informàtics, que el 2008 va tenir lloc sota el lema "Art. Ciència. Equilibri". Sovint els aspectes estètics d'una experiència interactiva es perceben com el resultat d'u...

The distinctive features of interactive sound installations in public space are considered, with special attention to the rich, if undoubtedly difficult, environments in which they exist. It is argued that such environments, and the social contexts that they imply, are among the most valuable fea-tures of these works for the approach that we have a...

An interactive system collects noise from a public place and transforms it into content for a public orchestration: the noise is split in specific sounds which are recomposed through sonic interface in a new soundscape. The SoundCam is the most visible part of the Recycling Soundscapes system. It rotates scanning a public space and gives the possib...

cote interne IRCAM: Susini06c

This paper presents work on the EcoTile, a new inter-active platform for the simulation of auditory and haptic experiences of everyday materials in walking. Walking is noteworthy as an enactive activity that is continuously negotiated in direct contact with its surroundings, in a way that is strongly dependent on the mutual morphol-ogy and material...

Sonic Interaction Design (SID) is an emerging field that is positioned at the intersection of auditory display, ubiquitous computing, interaction design, and interactive arts. SID can be used to describe practice and inquiry into any of various roles that sound may play in the interaction loop between users and artifacts, services, or environments,...

The use of phone booths has decreased with the growth of mobile telecommunication. In Italy for example, phone booths have been removed entirely from many places. This paper describes Televator, a telecommunication service that reuses the phone booth as space and connection to provide a digitally enhanced experience of the surrounding context while...