Our technology is constantly on the lookout for ways to humanize itself. Our devices 'personalize' themselves, our web searches yield information suiting our exact needs. Our technology is trying to put us in the centre of its design making sure it caters to our individualistic needs. Isn't it strange then, that the digital medium we choose to portray ourselves i.e. websites, all feel quite alike?

 

When we portray ourselves on the web, we hold the reins to filter, edit and control our content. We try to portray the best of ourselves to the audience we wish to communicate with. But, in this quest to portray the best of ourselves, we ignore the trivialities that make us unique. These trivialities are usually hidden in our behavioural traits, something that remains in oblivion on our websites.

 

Digital Reflections is a project that attempts to make web-spaces distinct by incorporating elements of our behaviour on digital spaces.

 

 

Our life revolves around objects. We store some as mementoes, use some as utility and buy some because we relate to them. We caress them to make us feel safe, we write in diaries when we're upset but sometimes we discard them. Our feelings and emotions transcend the mind and are reflected onto objects in our everyday environment.

 

Certain objects make us feel a certain way and we go to them when we feel a certain way. For instance, we may reach out to a diary when we're lonely, we may reach out to a statue of a god when we're upset. We may drink a lot of coffee when we're stressed, we may ignore our phone if we're too engrossed in the present moment.. The way we interact with objects in our environment can give an idea of how we might be feeling at that moment.

 

If we observe our interactions carefully we can find a specific set of interactions with a set of objects in direct co-relation to the mood we're in. For instance, when I'm lazy I usually skip watering my plants, curl up in bed, ignore phone calls and messages, take out a book to read and ask for food to be home-delivered. These set of actions that we do during a certain emotional state form an activity map. 

 

 

Using a plant as the object, a soil moisture sensor was used to detect the activity of watering the plant. If the plant was watered at regular interval or was there an anomaly in the watering cycle. Soil moisture sensor was attached to the arduino. Using the FTP library for processing, sensor readings from the soil moisture sensor established the current mood state of the owner based on the difference in watering cycles. This was then relayed onto the website by altering the CSS to reflect the mood of the person.

The current system detects activity around objects in our environment and portrays it digitally. This idea of using objects as a communication means to portray activity around them has been explored in the following three ways in separate projects 

 

1. To counter ill-habits or adopt a habit

If you want to quit smoking or want to start waking up early, you can hook up a sensor to the ciggarette pack or bed. As soon as you take out a ciggarette or sleep for longer than you should, your website will change its CSS automatically. As you'd always want your website to look a certain way, it will entice you to stick to the promises you're making to yourself.

 

2. Accurately detecting CSR activities

Some companies maintain parks as part of their CSR activity. Sensors can be attached to the parks to detect if they're being maintained. The upkeep of the park can be reflected as an automatic change in their websites' CSS - so the website will look healthy if the park is healthy, and neglected if the park is neglected.

 

3. Tool for self-reflection

If this experiment can encompass a lot of activities during the day, the change in the website behavior can be used as a tool for analysis and self-reflection much like other applications part of the Quantifying Self movement.

 

 

My ongoing effort and collaboration is towards creating digital spaces that attribute elements of our behaviour on the digital space. For the same I'm currently exploring three areas -

 

1. Websites that react to how you're interacting with them based on behavioral characteristics of its owner. For instance, I don't like it if I can't hold someones' attention for too long and usually get distracted by other thoughts so if you move away from my page too quickly you wouldn't be able to revisit my page as it would redirect you to another link.

 

2. Websites that grow with the people they represent. They are a portal to our physical being and display an exact representation of behaviour by being spaces that grow (behaviorally and content-wise) with time, just the way you are in the physical world.

The soil moisture sensor used in this project is a home-made device. Tutorials can be found here: http://www.cheapvegetablegardener.com/2009/11/how-to-make-cheap-soil-moisture-sensor-2.html