Discernment of attuned signals aid in wayfinding
The attunement strengthens during moments of interaction
OMNI
Implanting a sixth sense to grapple with the growing discord on social media.
Role
Designer and Creative Technologist
Tools
Adafruit Feather Express, CircuitPython, Illustrator, and Premiere Pro
BRIEF
We were prompted to reimagine social media through a technological intervention that gives users a supernatural ability to bond with one another during these socially fractured times.
IMPACT
Inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.’s ability to motivate millions of people around the United States (and the world) to bring about a fundamental change in how people related to one another through the power of his voice and presence––vibrations of sound and electromagnetism respectively.
Can entanglement and entrainment through implantation technology aid human beings in realizing our fundamental connection to one another?
Attunement occurs through the process of ritual and repeated close contact
Overtime the strength of attunement wanes so repeated interaction is necessary
METHOD
I conducted a site interview of a large antenna farm at the top of Mt. Wilson, above the City of Pasadena. From that vantage point, I was awestruck by the the size of the farm, the millions of people in southern California who tune into each of the antenna’s signals, and the inaccessibility of the information without a mediating device, such as a radio.
Following my journey, I developed five working prototypes with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) capability and asked participants to play with them as way to observe how they embodied the process of attunement.
Code available on GitHub:
link.
Site Interview of the Mt. Wilson antenna farm above Los Angeles County
Antenna prop designs
A BLE-enabled device for participants to connect via proximity
Device prototype
Inspirational images pinned to the studio wall
OVERVIEW
An implanted, artificial sense in which social networks form based on proximity and strengthens based on time spent in mutual attunement. Between entangled individuals, personal information and bodily sensations can be selected for transmission across vast distances. Individual self expression is encouraged in antenna designs through the modification of the antenna structure and coloring.
