Dates: 3 October 2022- 13 October 2022

Group members: Harry Solomons, Keyi Cao, Carlotta Montanari, Xiaole Zang and me.

WEEK 1

We received the brief for human senses and our sub-topic within that was proprioception. ‘The Monument’ was part of the brief as a site visit, so that was our starting point. We explored the area through visual, auditory and tactile sensory inputs. Our takeaway regarding the proprioception of ‘The Monument’ was that the structure stood out amongst the other tall buildings surrounding it despite being in an almost claustrophobic space for a structure that high.

My group and I, also decided to explore St. Dunstan as it was another location suggested. A calm urban garden, almost an oasis of its own.  Not getting too many ideas from our site visits, we decided to explore other topics through secondary research.

While reading through articles around proprioception, I stumbled upon the term ‘Gaze Detection System’ (GDS) in humans which caught my interest and I was instantly gripped. Our GDS is devoted to detecting where others are looking and whether or not they are looking at us. I discussed the topic with my group mates who were all onboard with the topic and so we came up with these exercises to help us understand better:

BUTTERED GLASSES EXPERIMENT

Our first experiment was done with buttered glasses. The objective was that the wearer was not able to visually decipher which one of the three people in front was staring at them. The interesting thing was despite removing the visual input, our GDS still functions almost accurately, as long as we block out other distractions in our environment.

BLACK SUNGLASSES EXPERIMENT

This exercise flips the previous one on its head and aims to observe whether the people who the wearer is looking at can sense who is being ‘gazed at’ accurately. Then again we found that our GDS is more or less accurate at sensing the ‘Gaze’ through body language alone.

THE JOHN FASS CAP EXPERIMENT

We wanted to understand how the constant proximity of a human face would make us feel. To help us understand this, we built this cap. The exercise was successful in making the wearer feel uncomfortable and on edge.

INTERIM PRESENTATION

We were complimented on engaging with the gaze detection system with practical exercises. Going forward we were advised to explore the angles and distances of our peripheral vision. There were limitations of the John Fass cap that we would like to work on improving. Firstly, users could get used to looking at the face image and secondly, the angle and distance of the gaze could not be changed within the cap.

WEEK 2

We dived deep into understanding how human gaze detection system is triggered by surveillance and human gaze. We brainstormed or rather ‘brainpuked’ around 30-35 ideas to then choose and pick from because we wanted to refrain from just taking ahead the first idea. In the end, we stuck with building on the ‘The John Fass cap’ and working with it due to time constraints in the project.

The idea was to have two tentacle-like sticks come out from the back of the wearer or over their head, which would then have a phone each attached to it, through which we could choose to have static or real-time staring.

THE PERIPHERAL VISION EXERCISE

In this exercise, one person slowly walks from the back of the subject to the front, keeping the radial distance consistent with a pencil held at eye level. The aim is for the subject to identify when the pencil enters their peripheral vision and for us to understand the relation of our peripheral vision to our ‘Gaze Detection System’.

THE ‘CAN YOU IDENTIFY?’ EXERCISE

The aim of this exercise to build upon the previous one and explore when letters and colours become recognisable in our peripheral fields. So we could understand where to place the phones within our final prototype.

At this point we had a tutorial with Tonicha and she told us how it would be interesting to link this to ‘Gaze through surveillance’. This lead us to add another element to our experience, a viewing box.

FINAL PROTOTYPE

Looking at ways to improve the wearability of our prototype we decided to use a bag. We used a hardcover book to attach the selfie sticks and put the book in a bag so it is conveniently wearable. Furthermore, this prototype allowed us to adjust and readjust the selfie sticks as many times, to also form part of our design process. Instead of using two, we decided on just using one since two seemed to distract the wearer.

We also made a cardboard viewing box, which connects to the phone through a video call. This was done so that the starer is delocalised, and almost mimics the way surveillance works. To make the experience feel more invasive of private space, we made the wearer do a fairly personal task of eating a twix.

Our project provides a chance for people to experience the human gaze over an elongated period while they indulge in personal activities. This can strengthen the feeling of proprioception which they seldom noticed before. Moreover, we have used mobile phones which help draw a parallel to surveillance devices such as CCTV cameras. With increasing numbers of surveillance cameras being put up in and around cities, this project aims to explore the effects of this on the human gaze detection system.

FINAL FEEDBACK

The prototype is intriguing and did make the wearer feel conscious of being watched. We could have set the scene a little better but the interaction of the class through the viewing box and the wearer with the prototype was received well. We were also appreciated for the high fidelity of our prototype.