CIID IDP 2015: Secret Life of Objects
taught by Josh Noble
and Simone Rebaudengo
Liliana Lambriev
Sergey Komardenkov
Line Birgitte
concept design
Arduino circuitry and coding
mechanics
videography
MEDI gets his name from the word “mediation”. As part of the interior of a house it may initially draw limited attention. But when there is an argument taking place MEDI can politely jump in and show to those in conversation who is doing a better job at managing it. MEDI is paying attention to how people control their emotions, how they listen to what the other person has to say, and checks if they use proper language when expressing themselves.
By inclining away from the person making poor choices in communicating his or her opinion MEDI allows them to recognize their failure at appropriately managing the conversation. If the two cannot find common ground they can ask MEDI to decide for them – it will do so by giving its final nod towards the person who managed the argument better.
The brief for this project was to work with the idea that in future no object in our houses would have special status, but that everything would exists equally. In our team we began with discussing how each of us perceives their apartment, different areas in it, and how the layout of each of these areas affect our day-to-day life. We found common interest in the topic of conversations and arguments we may have at home and how these events are affected by what surrounds us at the time.
We decided to work on the idea of an object that would help two people manage their argument in a better way. We wanted to help them come to a decision quicker and show enough care for other person’s views and opinions. Iterating through several options for the physical form of the object and its behavior we settled on what became MEDI.
