CaT Conference panel discusses how physical interaction is driving post-digital media

The June 10 Creativity and Technology (CAT) conference in New York started off strong with a panel called Making it Work in the Post-Digital World. Despite the presumptuous title, the session did not signal the end of the digital era, but marked an emerging version of digital media that no longer exists solely on the screen. In the so-called post-digital world, technology intersects with our physical surroundings to create new experiences. The following panelists shared recent work that’s helping to define the emerging post-digital interactive space:

• Conor Brady, Cheif Creative Officer, Organic
• Andreas Dahlqvist, Creative Director, DDB Stockholm
• Theodore Watson, Interactive Installation Specialist and Co-founder, openFrameworks and YesYesNo
• Moderator: Teressa Iezzi, Editor, Creativity

Making positive change fun

Andreas Dahlqvist opened the panel with a presentation of some of DDB’s post-digital work. The agency’s work with Volkswagen’s The Fun Theory, which invited people to dream up fun ways to change people’s behavior for the better, was the stand-out. The idea behind TFT is that if you could make driving the speed limit fun, for example, then the world would be a better place.

People were asked to design fun objects that facilitate positive behavioral changes and submit their designs or proof-of-concept videos. Some of the videos, such as the bottomless trash can, a trash receptacle outfitted with a sensor and soundtrack that made a cartoonish falling noise when people placed trash in it, actually went viral.

Collecting and displaying the videos on a website is still very much a purely digital solution to distributing information. But many of the designers merged digital and non-digital components and placed them in public spaces to achieve their goals. In the post-digital world, interactivity isn’t limited to clicking a mouse or dragging objects across the screen; its about physically engaging your audience.

Breaking the cycle

Conor Brady discussed Organic’s research that laid the groundwork for Kotex’s JWT-produced Break the Cycle campaign. Organic hid cameras in and around stores to watch consumer reactions to feminine hygiene products. The research brought to the foreground cultural attitudes about the products and the way we talk about them. Men can barely say the word tampon, women aren’t satisfied with the products, and young girls are generally embarrassed about having their period.

The research culminated in a series of “anti-tampon ad” ads in which the usual clichés, e.g. dancing in white dresses to demonstrate how unimpeded other tampons make women feel, were called out for their lack of connection with consumers. Five agencies were involved in the project, which included a website (www.ubykotex.com) with a forum and feminine hygiene resources in addition to the ads.

Like The Fun Theory, the Break the Cycle website is very much a digital concept. Visitors can interact with the content, research products and even connect through Facebook. But it’s the research that Organic did to inform the website, the ads, even the product design, that subscribes to the post-digital ethos.

Metaphysical graffiti

Theodore Watson was the final panelist to talk about his work. Watson creates installations and public art that are the very definition of post-digital as defined by the panel. Daisies, a project Watson originally created for a class at Parsons, is a projection of computer-generated flowers pointed at the floor. As people walk across the floor, the trampled flowers die, but grow back after a few seconds.

Funky Forest is an interactive room installation designed for children. It’s an ecosystem where children make the shape of a tree with their bodies, and a computer-generated tree appears on the wall. The children then divert water flowing from a waterfall to the trees to keep them alive.

Daisies and Funky Forest are interesting examples of how technology connects to the physical world to take digital beyond the screen, but Watson’s laser pointer graffiti projects are his most noteworthy. Dubbed Laser Tag, artists use a laster pointer to draw digital graffiti on a building rendered by a projector. Laser Tag has impressed everyone from Disney to the U.S. military, but Watson and his partners at Graffiti Research Labs (GRL) made the decision that they would not sell the technology, opting to release the source code openly.

The Eyewriter, an iteration of Laser Tag, is a low-cost eye-tracking apparatus that allows paralyzed people to draw on a screen by moving their eyes. Phase two of the Eyewriter project is to connect the tracking device to a mobile projector à la the original Laser Tag system. Born out of a desire to empower graffiti artists with ALS, Eyewriter is Watson’s most poignant example of how physical parameters are shaping the post-digital world.

Too early for post-digital?

There wasn’t much time for discussion after the panelists presented their work. But a few keen observations were made in the short time left. First, the panel acknowledged that the term post-digital doesn’t necessarily mean the end of digital. By disrupting how newer technologies are displayed and consumed, post-digital pioneers are adding a new dimension to media.

Second, digital projects are now immensely measurable and trackable. Instead of just creating a website with one-way communicable content, people can add comments, share, and submit their own content. More importantly, you can observe people interacting with your work when it’s seated in the physical world. The concept of a post-digital world is disruptive and requires significant creative thinking to for people in it stay relevant, which is what made this session a great way to kick off the conference.

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