The Republic of Privacy

The Republic of Privacy project was featured in an exhibition entitled "The Paradox of Privacy". The exhibition description is as followed: "In 2001, a study by HP Labs found that participants reported being concerned about their privacy and yet willing to give up that privacy for very little gain. They called this phenomenon ‘the privacy paradox’. Why do many of us claim to value our privacy highly, and yet share vast amounts of personal data? Do we do this purely to enable personalised, on-demand lives? And how can we reconcile this “irrational gap” between our claimed preferences for privacy and our actual behaviour? The artworks in this exhibition reflect on the value of our attention, time and online data, proposing new techniques for negotiating the future of privacy and personalisation in the era of social media, AI and deep learning.

Should Robots Blush?

Social interaction is the most complex challenge in daily life. Inevitably, social robots will encounter interactions that are outside their competence. This raises a basic design question: how can robots fail gracefully in social interaction? The characteristic human response to social failure is embarrassment. Usefully, embarrassment signals both recognition of a problem and typically enlists sympathy and assistance to resolve it. This could enhance robot acceptability and provides an opportunity for interactive learning. Using a speculative design approach we explore how, when and why robots might communicate embarrassment. A series of specially developed cultural probes, scenario development and low-fidelity prototyping exercises suggest that: embarrassment is relevant for managing a diverse range of social scenarios, impacts on both humanoid and non-humanoid robot design, and highlights the critical importance of understanding interactional context. We conclude that embarrassment is fundamental to competent social functioning and provides a potentially fertile area for interaction design

Should Robots Blush?: Embarrassed Robots

Artificial intelligence and robotics will play an increasingly important role in supporting our lives. Currently, AI and robotics remain crude – confined to our smartphones, sat-navs, or tasked to build our cars. To fit more seamlessly into our daily lives they will have to learn to successfully reflect our emotions – the embarrassment for example. Embarrassed Robots project proposes an investigation into how through material, form and function a robot can come to express emotion, without aping and alienating us

The Republic of Privacy

With the speed at which digital technology develops, personal privacy is becoming an increasingly important issue. Many people seem willing to sacrifice their privacy and share personal information in order to use digital communication. Others have begun to use technology to protect their privacy and take control of their digital lives. This raises the question of whether it is possible to achieve total privacy while still getting the benefit from digital communication technologies. The Republic of Privacy is a fictional nation where people can live in absolute privacy. This project starts with a simple question: What kinds of new systems are needed to guarantee a life that is 100% private? This project attempts to examine three questions around this issue: How to respect individual boundaries in the sharing of personal information, how to be free from written personal data storage and how to be free from identity analysis by unknown observers and organisations. This project responds to these questions by imagining alternative systems in different sectors: A marriage ritual - Identity Marriage, personal identification - Sniffer Dog Authentication and a language system - Chromatic Encryption. The project illustrates this speculative scenario through an anthropologist's approach of examining physical-cultural elements of the society, such as technological applications, costumes, languages and mannerisms

Embarrassed Robots

The film of the Embarrassed Robot project has been featured in an exhibition entitled Femmes Designers - Through Her Lens: Testing boundaries in STEAM. This exhibition was a part of the launch event of Femmes Designers Community. The event description is as follows: "We were thrilled to host our launch event exhibition and panel discussion on the 19th of October, 2023 at the Shoreditch Arts Club in London! The evening was a captivating blend of a thought-provoking panel discussion and an exhibition showcasing the exceptional works of the Femmes Designers Community. The panel delved into the dynamic interplay and transformative potential of creativity, innovation, and inclusivity within STEAM disciplines. Thank you to everyone who joined us and contributed to an extraordinary evening! A special thanks to our esteemed panellists Noémie Soula, Rajani Rao, Jiani Zeng, and Maroula Zacharias for generously sharing their invaluable insights and expertise, leading an inspiring and electrifying discussion. [...]

LED Eyelash

The LED Eyelash project is brought into the world from a simple question: Why do women want larger and bigger eyes? Asian women tend to have stronger needs for bigger eyes as a standard of beauty, but relatively few of them are born with naturally big eyes. Those without big eyes can only look for alternative ways to make their eyes look prettier, i.e., larger, by using a repertoire of skills such as putting on makeup and wearing jewellery. Sometimes, the desires for bigger eyes can become almost obsessive, and many women opt for plastic surgery in order to make their dream come true: I call this, the fetish of Big Eyes. LED Eyelash is a project that speaks to many women’s desire for bigger eyes. It features a sensor to turn on and/or off. The sensor can perceive the movements of the pupil in the eyes and eyelids. If you wear it and move your head, LED Eyelash will flicker following your movements. It is as simple to use as wearing false eyelashes and as easy to remove as taking off a piece of jewellery

The Republic of Privacy: Sniffer Dog Authentication

Sniffer Dog Authentication is an identification system that works on human odour. Instead of using written personal data storage for authentication, this system employs dog’s smell recognition for identification. This is used in financial applications, such as ATM and pay envelopes, driving licences and healthcare certificates. The Sniffer Dog Authentication system raises the issue of personal information in the financial system. By showing an alternative identifying system, the project reveals the complex structures of today’s financial system. This convenience system relies on correct identification of the individual, therefore security threats to personal data are no longer an issue. The deeply embedded reliance on those data in the system makes alternatives seem unfamiliar. The oddness in the design solution emphasise the importance and complexity of those issues. The design exemplifies what new human-technology interaction are necessary in order to use this system. How will the sociological definition of ‘privacy’ change if people have to let a dog sniff their private body parts in order to have freedom from personal data storage

Should Robots Blush?

Social interaction is the most complex challenge in daily life. Inevitably, social robots will encounter interactions that are outside their competence. This raises a basic design question: how can robots fail gracefully in social interaction? The characteristic human response to social failure is embarrassment. Usefully, embarrassment signals both recognition of a problem and typically enlists sympathy and assistance to resolve it. This could enhance robot acceptability and provides an opportunity for interactive learning. Developing a project entitled ``Embarrassed Robots" that uses a speculative design approach, this thesis explores how, when and why robots might communicate embarrassment. Three studies are presented in this thesis to examine the research aims. First, a series of specially developed cultural probes, scenario development and low-fidelity prototyping exercises are used to understand public responses on the connection between the robot and embarrassment. In addition, an animation survey is conducted to explore forms and motions as the signal of the robot's embarrassment. Finally, a video recording of the robot prototype audience is analysed to see the potential for the robot's social acceptance level. The results suggest that embarrassment is: relevant for managing a diverse range of social scenarios, impacts both humanoid and non-humanoid robot design, and highlights the critical importance of understanding interactional context. The design of signals should consider reflecting: human's non-verbal displays of embarrassment and the affective expressions of embarrassment's consequences (e.g., sad, excited, happy, scared etc.). The findings show that people will accept robots as a social subject if they see the affective signals because they evoke empathy. The research results also indicate that people will respond to robots with social expressions and gestures if they see affective signals and forms. This research concludes that embarrassment is fundamental to competent social functioning and provides social robotics opportunities to expand the approaches to increase social acceptance of robots

Embarrassed Robots

The film of the Embarrassed Robot project has been featured in an exhibition entitled Future Cross Boundaries. The exhibition description is as followed: "The value of design has been in Taiwan for nearly 70 years, from the early stage of making attractive appearances of products, to the middle stage of introducing of human factors engineering and user experience, and the recent stage of out of the fields of products and businesses, and began using systematically integrative thinking to re-examine the environment in which we live and the mode of social operation, "Design" has always existed for the pursuit of a better future! In the process of thinking about how to do a better future, "design" must also consider soft factors such as culture, environment, humanity, and cooperate with the economy, technology, manufacturing this kind of efficiency-oriented heavy industries, producing more solutions that fulfills the long-term interests of humanity and society. In the August 2018, this exhibition was named the theme "Future Beyond Imagination" and first presented “Taiwan Design Expo 2018” at the Taichung Cultural and Creative Industries Park in Taichung, focusing on technology and manufacturing that emphasises the excellent cases importance of the integration and imagination between hard and soft power from foreign and domestic. The exhibition created an immense response with 331,731 visitors in 33 days. The exhibition now is transferred to theTaiwan Design Museum at the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park in Taipei, and renamed the theme to "Future Cross Boundaries". The exhibition now put "interdisciplinary" in the main topic from "Material Future", "Production Future" and "Life Future", gradually outlines the new situations created by the integration between soft and hard power, and finally the cases from "Interdisciplinary Future" allows audience to know that interdisciplinary integration can not only be applied in technology and manufacturing, but also integrate various professions in the public and government fields to create a better future for residents. In addition to demonstrating the industrial strength of Taiwan, this exhibition is also expected to bring a visualisation of the future to the government, enterprises and the public - soft and hard, fantasy and reality, culture and ecoomy. These are seemingly opposite sides will no longer be opposite to each other but being partners which mutual supports for growing. Only the soft and hard power cooperation and interdisciplinary integration can build a better and sustainable future.