Documentation of a new media thesis work
9.-13.11.2009 participating in the Designing Interaction with Electronics workshop with Anusha Iyer. We designed tangible communication prototypes, Squeeze to Say Hello! and Braille Machine, with electronics to learn how to use sensors, Arduino boards and other electronics.
From Friday 16th to Sunday 18th of October we participated on a workshop called Tee Koskettelukirja (Design a Tactile Book) at the Kalliolan Setlementtiopisto, Helsinki. Tactile books are designed for visually impaired children and are equal to picture books for seeing children.
The design process starts from choosing or writing your own story and then planning which would be the key illustrations for the story. We had some materials ready and started thinking of their sounds when small hand would be touching and pressing them. Idea evolved into a story titled “Sounds when you walk”.
Our book contains 7 tactile pages, which are to be used with a small shoe that the reader will wear in her hand and walk along the pages. Text can be read from the text pages either visually or by fingers.
Celia Library
The teacher of the workshop was from the Celia Library Helsinki. In Finland tactile books can be borrowed from their library. “Celia produces talking books, Braille books and electronic books for the library’s lending department as well as for schoolchildren and students at different levels of education, vocational training and self-study. The study materials are designed to be suitable for and accessible to the visually impaired.”(1)
More detailed information of how to design a tactile book can be found from Celia Library’s website in Finnish and from the TBAG’s (Tactile Book Advancement Group) page in English.
I had seen Wilma Hurskainen’s photographs at my friend’s hotel room in the Spring 2009 and went to look for her other works online. There I found a series called Saara, which had a big influence on me. Once browsing through the photographs and reading the texts that accompanied them, I started to think how is everyday life without sight. How to travel from home to school every day with public transport. How scary is it when you can’t see and there is nobody around to ask for directions?
As my life, work and studies are so visual at the moment I wanted to go deeper into the subject. I’m also not skilled with sounds and music, so concentrating in my next project to things that differ from visual is a challenge. Sense of smell, hearing and tactile will be the keywords for the project.
- Liisa Tervinen
We all, as kids have played the game where a friend traces letters on your back and you have to guess what he/she wrote -
This project for me is like a suspension into this short moment of closed eyes where all our focus is turned to the pressure and patterns of the finger tip moving on our backs.
If we concentrate really hard we would make the abstract connection of between these movements, to things(alphabets) we have learnt outside of the game.
I cant begin to imagine what it would be like to make meaning of the world with our eyes always closed..
This project is my attempt to understand this state of being, seek inspiration from it and articulate my own role as a creative practitioner within this context.
- Ramyah Gowrishankar
