FÄRG

About

Färg is an installation that was created as part of the course Interaction Design Project at Chalmers University of Technology in the autumn of 2020. The installation is part of an exhibition with the theme Quantified Self conducted in the Visual Arena at Lindholmen, Gothenburg. The exhibition was aimed at 12-16 year olds, and aimed to raise their interest in science and technology, while at the same time providing a fun and inspiring experience.

Installation

As the project took place during the COVID-19-pandemic, the exhibition could not follow the same structure that it had the previous years, namely presenting the physical installations at Universeum in Gothenburg. We had the option of only making an online installation, but we decided to make our installation in such a way that it had both a physical installation to show on the exhibition, as well as having an online installation with a similar experience, more accessible for people who cannot attend the exhibition. Normally Quantified Self is achieved by manually inputting data into a system/notebook over a period of time. Since our concept is aimed at teenagers, we realized we needed to make the mode of input more inviting and adapted to them. The thing that came to mind was the fact that teenagers like taking pictures of themselves, and this is what we chose to use as the main interaction in our installation.

Physical

In order to create a big impression on the attendees, we decided on projecting our installation onto a big whiteboard. Near the screen there is a camera which captures the user if the user stands in a certain position, shown on the screen, for a few seconds.
When the picture of the user is captured, the colours of the user is extracted and sent into the colour stream which is displayed to the right of the camera-view on the screen. This colour stream saves the colours of all of the visitors, and thus it can be viewed as a quantification of ourselves as a society!

Online

The online installation has the same functionality as the physical, but the screen is replaced with the users’ own computer monitor, and the camera is replaced with their webcam. The interesting difference is that instead of having a public stream of colours, the user gets their very own! We figure that if a user takes a picture of their outfit every day, they can then go back and explore what they’ve been wearing the last week, month, or even year! This is a way to let the users quantify themselves over a period of time!