Due: Tues., Feb 16, 10:30AM

Next week we will begin working with microcontrollers that we will program with lines of instruction (code). This next assignment will offer some preparation for thinking through instructions and telematics.

For this exercise, we would like you to experiment with a partner in creating a telematic experience for another person for 30 minutes. You will do this exercise twice.

Each student will write a score for their project partner to actuate/perform for an audience member. (The audience member can be someone in the performer’s quarantine pod.) Before creating the scores, discuss your boundaries and give consent for what is okay in regards to the kinds of instructions given.

After the telematic experience, briefly interview your friend who volunteered to participate. Then we’d like you (just students in the course, not volunteers) to jointly write a blog post describing and documenting the two telematic experiences.

An example of one score for your classmate-partner could be:

  • You will be a microcontroller creating an ambient telematic experience for 30 minutes. During the 30 minutes:
    • Find a location in the same room as your volunteer friend for whom this activity is being created.
    • Every three minutes I will send you a text with a random word.
    • Respond to my text in three ways: 1) Text me the first word association you think of in response to my word 2) Create a shape with your full body and a piece of fabric that expresses your associated word and hold that shape until you receive a new word.
    • At the end of the 30 minutes, create a drawing of each pose you created.

Be creative within the boundaries set up by you and your collaborator.

Objectives

  • Explore telematics through the creation and enactment of a score.
  • Explore what the role of the microcontroller will be in telematic projects.

Prompts

Here are some suggested approaches:

  • Ambient, non-directed presence. Can you identify a context in which passively transmitting and receiving would create a sense of connection?
  • Tele-action. Can you choose roles and a task in which one person directs another to accomplish a goal? Is there a task for which the roles could be symmetric?
  • Respons-ible: Can your project subtly respond to the actions of your volunteer without “breaking the frame”?
  • How can fabric be creatively used in this exercise?

Tools

  1. Video: Zoom, FaceTime, etc.
  2. Text: text messages, email
  3. Tactile: alerts, notifications