Assignment: Final Project 1: Progress Report

Collaborators: tilman, davida

The Social Elevator

So we have abandoned the idea of the interactive bouquet of flower in order to come up with something that has more social impact. So the basic idea origins from the observation how people behave when forced to share a small space, as in BART or an elevator. Experiments from the field of social psychology have shown that people who are strangers to each other strongly avoid standing too close to each other as to preserve the private space that surrounds a person. Whereas we unconsciously allow people who are familiar to us to intrude our private space. This 'natural' distance therefore acts as an indicator of how familiar two persons are to each other. So what if we could make these unconscious distances visible by an adaptive environment? Or how will people behave when forced into a tiny space like an elevator when the surrounding environment responds to their flight for distance?

Let's imagine an elevator. Usually when two strangers are standing in an elevator they will position themselves in the very far corners opposite to each other. Now you could adapt the atmosphere of the elevator (by changing lighting, sound or even wall displays) in order to signal the social distance of the two people within. It could even create an atmosphere that makes them uncomfortable (like thunder sounds and dazzling lights for example) until they eventually would start shifting. The closer the people get to each other the more pleasant the environment will react to that change (smooth lighting, thunder turning into classical music).

Eventually it will be interesting to observe how people behave once they realize that their proximity to each other determines the coziness of the elevator ride. Or maybe they will not even consciously notice it, but further implicitly react to the environmental changes. It could also serve as a great conversation starter within the elevator. How close are people willing to get together in order to enjoy the pleasant atmosphere? How would a couple react to an elevator that senses their affinity for each other?

The elevator could even sense if there are children inside and adjust the displays on the walls accordingly (children chasing a butterfly that runs from wall to wall, for example).

The basic idea is to create an elevator that acts as an indicator of social dynamics, tool for communication or as mere entertainment during the ride.