Project done with Valerio Calimici and Daniele Muscella at Iuav, Gillian Crampton Smith and Philip Tabor’s course.
Heartstrings, an unconventional opportunity to stay in contact, a private and intimate system, based on a physical, emphatic, and emotional communication.
The aim of this project is to experience the mood of a person far from you. If you are living a long distance relationship it allows you to feel and experience on your own skin a sensation of tightening due to the other person’s changes in heartbeat: your scarf tightens as his or her heartbeat accelerates.
HEART•STRINGSdefinition:
the deepest feelings, the strongest affections. To tug at one’s heartstrings.
This system is for people in a really strong relationship, our hypothetical users are couples or siblings, it’s not just for lovers.
We decided to call our project this way because we wanted to “catch” users’ deepest emotions, without using words or images but just feelings.
We drawn inspiration from the relationship that there is usually between twins, it is a common saying that twins can feel each other pain when they are separated. We wanted to represent this connection in our project.
Our two users want to be linked through the whole day even if they are not together, they want to know how is the other, if anything happens to him, avoiding the use of words.
The scarf represents a portion of the other person’s heart, it contracts when other user’s heartbeats accelerate. The contraction lets you feel a sensation of pressure and hug which can be pleasant or painful.
The scarf is made as a normal piece of textile, in red and white cotton with veins sewn on the top. But it is passed through by two nylon wires which are connected to a motor gear that wraps these wires around a little spool, so contracting the scarf when the other person is feeling a bad sensation.
The light station is a metaphor for the rib cage, it has to protect and preserve the heart.
It is a station for the scarf when is not worn and starts to pulse red light when the scarf is inside and other person’s heartbeats accelerate. It’s made with bent and welded iron sheets, on the inside it has red LED stripes that alight the scarf when is placed in the rib cage.
The rib cage can be placed at home on a night table.
Heartstrings
Venice 2011
Project done with Valerio Calimici and Daniele Muscella at Iuav, Gillian Crampton Smith and Philip Tabor’s course.
Heartstrings, an unconventional opportunity to stay in contact, a private and intimate system, based on a physical, emphatic, and emotional communication.
The aim of this project is to experience the mood of a person far from you. If you are living a long distance relationship it allows you to feel and experience on your own skin a sensation of tightening due to the other person’s changes in heartbeat: your scarf tightens as his or her heartbeat accelerates.
HEART•STRINGS definition:
the deepest feelings, the strongest affections.
To tug at one’s heartstrings.
This system is for people in a really strong relationship, our hypothetical users are couples or siblings, it’s not just for lovers.
We decided to call our project this way because we wanted to “catch” users’ deepest emotions, without using words or images but just feelings.
We drawn inspiration from the relationship that there is usually between twins, it is a common saying that twins can feel each other pain when they are separated. We wanted to represent this connection in our project.
Our two users want to be linked through the whole day even if they are not together, they want to know how is the other, if anything happens to him, avoiding the use of words.
The scarf represents a portion of the other person’s heart, it contracts when other user’s heartbeats accelerate. The contraction lets you feel a sensation of pressure and hug which can be pleasant or painful.
The scarf is made as a normal piece of textile, in red and white cotton with veins sewn on the top. But it is passed through by two nylon wires which are connected to a motor gear that wraps these wires around a little spool, so contracting the scarf when the other person is feeling a bad sensation.
The light station is a metaphor for the rib cage, it has to protect and preserve the heart.
It is a station for the scarf when is not worn and starts to pulse red light when the scarf is inside and other person’s heartbeats accelerate. It’s made with bent and welded iron sheets, on the inside it has red LED stripes that alight the scarf when is placed in the rib cage.
The rib cage can be placed at home on a night table.
The whole project on Interaction Venice.