Portfolio » The Chair

A chair that translates female body language into plain English displayed on a screen

Leaning forward means she is interested. One leg crossed conveys negativity. Uncrossing and recrossing of her legs is a sexual pass.

I built a working prototype from scratch, which included hardware and software programming, wiring, and assembly.

I initially made this object as a cynical commentary on the role of technology in human interaction, but was surprised to discover that men actually thought it to be a very good idea.

Thanks to Yaniv Steiner for his support, part of IDII, Italy

Physical Prototyping, Video and Photo Scenarios, Critical Design, Programming

Study of Body Language

I researched body language signs in romantic situations and came up with an idea of using a chair for interpreting the various body signals.

Physical Prototyping

The Chair is embedded with four infra red sensors, which are connected to a Wiring board transmitting to Flash based software running on a Mac via USB.

Signal Processing and Visualization

I programmed Flash-based software in ActionScript, which processed the signals received from The Chair and interpreted various body positions and movements.

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