"What does the eyes say?"
The usage of emojis and texting has evolved to holographic projections in order to compensate for the lack of literacy around body language. The result is a further dehumanized interaction in space, and a strictly visual understanding of body language. It is therefore urgent to understand the terms and conditions that apply to the social contract of kinetics. As well as what it means to be physically present in a space, interacting face to face. In a world where alone together is the norm, rehearsing eye contact becomes a ritual for practicing engagement. How can we reconnect with the essence of being present in a space? What social contracts do we unconsciously adhere to? How do these social contracts affect our mutual interaction and ability to read each other's subtle movements?
Welcome to a Hologram World
Texting and other means of digital communication has become the norm of our everyday life. Therefore, it wouldn't be surprised that the near-future interaction of our society progress into a blind reliance on holograms. Using the "Extrapolation Factory Operator's Manual" four ways of world building (growth, collapse, discipline, and transform) as prompts, we imagine a world continuing to search for solutions though enhancing technology. In this future, hologram projection become a commonplace method of communication. It is hailed as "the solution" as it address the problem of being able to read each other's body language. But what about the physical presence of being together? Or the ability to smell, to touch, and to feel? While we benefit from the conveniences of digital communication, what does it mean to be connected digitally and only digitally?
Extrapolation Factory Operator's Manual four ways of world building
Hyper Mediation of Digital Technology
Hologram technology proposes itself as the architect of our intimacies, as it substitutes our lives on the digital format for the other kind. Hologram connectivity offers majority of us the illusion of companionship without the demand of relationship. This world of device are always on, and always on us. With hologram technology, we have the capacity to hid away from one another, even as we are continually connected. We would be able to bail out of the physical real at anytime to go to all of other places and spaces that are available for us.
"We can have each other at a distance, in amount that we can control. Connection are made to measure, that is the new promise. "
- Sherry Turkle (2011)
The Literacy of Body Language
Back in time, the introduction of emojis, memes, gifs, and video memos were designed as the solution to replace the lack of in-present signals, the problem continues as our conversations are being reduced into a sentence, a word, or simply, a thumb up. We no longer engaged in deep conversations, we are too busy communicating to really connect with the people we care in ways that would really count. Since our body language (which involves contextualized narrative, physical touch and mark making) has been replaced by strictly hologram (visual) communication, we have lost the sensation of being physically “present” and engaged in the space. It is rather important to focus our gaze back on each other.
"In continual contact, we are alone, together. "
Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (2011)
Where do we live in our new tethered lives?
Design for the lost of face to face interaction, a device is created to help the us find our own comfort zone by adjusting the length of string during impersonal interaction. The string intentionally built at the horizon line and guides our sight to each other.
Moving on...
Today, the life as we knew it has changed due to COVID-19. We are adopting to this new lifestyle where majority of our activities such as learning, meeting, working are being delivered online in order to practice social distance. Digital connectivity is inevitably, the new norm. Therefore, it is important that we don't lose our capacity for this kind of solitude, and cherish every moment of being engaged in the present, together.
