Choi, Kyung Yun, and Hiroshi Ishii. "Bubble Talk: Open-source Interactive Art Toolkit for Metaphor of Modern Digital Chat." Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction. 2019.
Publication
Bubble Talk: Open-source interactive art toolkit for metaphor of modern digital chat
Abstract
In this art project, the ephemeral and intangible aspects of human's communication are represented by soap-bubble. The shapeless, intangible, and insubstantial speech - once the speech is shouted out through speaker's mouth it disappears unless someone hears it immediately, or even it is heard, the message will be forgotten as time goes - is transferred to a semi-tangible yet still fleeting bubble. The bubble machine that we created provides person-to-person and person-to-space interaction. The machine has a iris mechanism that varies its outlet size reacting to the participant's speech pattern as if it tries to talk something. Once the participant pauses, the machine blows out various sizes of bubble. The floating bubble represents the subtle state of a message from interpersonal communications that lies in the middle of real and digital world. Also, it creates a certain delay until it pops, which is a metaphor of our behavior that we often delay to send out text-messages through chatting apps. We believe that anyone can be an artist. By open sourcing the details of fabrication process and materials, we want to encourage people to build the machine, interact with it at any locations, and use and modify it as a art tool for realizing their own ideas whether it is for art or not.
- Exhibited in the Tempe Center for Arts, AZ, US, March, 2019
- Featured in Instructables, Awarded in Toy Contest
A soap bubble is ephemeral. It lasts only for a brief moment and quickly disappears even by a light breeze. The bubble's symbolic meaning as a metaphor of human's fragile and insubstantial life was first coined by a Roman writer Varro in the 1st century BC. Also, in 1572 the philosopher Eras-mus reintroduced the Latin expression ”Homo bulla” ("man is a bubble") in his collection of proverbs, Adagia. The attractiveness of bubble might becoming from its ironical representation of our transient life which reminds us of the value of our existence at a moment and makes us seize the present.
Speech
Later in the 18th and 19th-century, the connection between bubbles and their fleeting life become more a motive of parody and it is possible to find many sketches of political satire, from this period, representing bubbles as speech of a politician (meaning something nice but with short life) a tradition that lasted until the 20th-century [Pezzoli et al.]. Also, a word and shape of ’bubble’ were used as a graphic convention describing a imaginary form of speech and thought of characters in comic books. Inspired from those metaphors of bubble, we introduce an interactive art project representing the ephemeral and intangible properties of human's communication. Once speech is shouted out from a speaker, the sound of speech never lasts and it lost its meaning unless there is a listener. Even if the speech is heard by someone, the message will be forgotten as time goes.
The shapeless, intangible, and invisible speech is transformed into a semi-tangible yet still insubstantial form of visible bubble. To present this art concept, we created a bubble machine that provides person-to-person and person-to-space interaction. We designed the machine which does not show any intention of bubble machine so that no ones can expect what the purpose of the machine is until they interact with it.
Open-source Art Toolkit
Through this project, we deliver a message that art can be accessible to anybody from anywhere. We hope that the instructions of fabrication and material make people access to this interactive art installation in their home as well so that not require them necessarily to visit the specific art exhibition place. Also, by inviting them to be engaged to the fabrication process, which is the first start point of the art installation, we wanted make them feel being an artist, and inspire them to use it as a tool for their idea realization whether it is art-oriented or engineering-oriented.
Mechanism
We wanted to design the machine that can create the surprising moment of audiences by making them hard to guess what the machine does. We did not want to make it looking like so obviously telling ”I am ready to blow out bubbles.”
To let the machine itself can be a kinetic sculpture even without the soap liquid, we built a iris mechanism inspired by the prior work of giant bubble machine [Kirkwood, Instructables 2015] which used a CNC machine and metal sheets. We modified it to have a mobile form factor and easy to fabricate using acrylic
sheets and 3D printing. By using a string to create a soap membrane, the installation itself provides visual entertainment to audiences. As a servo motor rotate, the string attached to the servo's pulley, the iris made of 3 strings open and close 3. When it fully open, the iris forms a triangular shape with the maximum surface area of soap membrane. The peristaltic motor pump provides soap liquid and make the strings wet when the iris close. As the iris opens, the wet strings create a triangular soap membrane and a fan with a nozzle behind the membrane blows it to create and blow out bubbles. The machine's structural frame allows the user to hold through its two holes on the leg, and also place on flat surface adding support jig to the holes.