The most logical starting point of the first "Tangible media" project seems to me to be exploring emotion. More concisely, how do we express emotion through design or what things do we interpret by applying emotions to?
I have come up with a list of Ideas I have so far, and will flesh out these ideas with research in furthur posts. This is just everything that comes to mind, not all applicable to this project, but maybe helpfull for the next one.
movement.
form.
colour.
sound.
words.
expression (maybe expression is merely a combination of these things, will explore).
lighting. (hmm maybe just a subcategory of colour?)
scent. (perfume i suppose is my thinking behind this, am i feeling old/sexy/formal etc..)
well so far thats all I can come up with, Ill look around to see what else I can find though.
(the following writing is just me getting ideas in typed form, they may possibly not make too much sense in their current babblingy rambly form)
delving furthur into the question of WHAT IS emotion might help me generate meaningful ideas for this project. (again this is all unresearched and a mere product of opinionated thought so far) I suppose taking a purely materialistic view of the world, I could assume that it is merely an exchange of chemicals or some electrons firing through nerves/brain in the body (I'm not going to lie, I'm no expert in these matters). However this exchange is triggered off by what? Environmental triggers, personal issues, social issues, communicated information etc...
The most interesting for me is the idea of information causing emotion, something nonexistant in a physical sense triggering of a physical reaction in terms of emotion. Where does the nonexistant become existant? information has no substance yet all substance has information, so how does information that is generated by us (especially digital information generated in the virtual world) become real in terms of its emotional impact? How does the nonphysical idea become a physical exchange of chemicals in the brain? Is information meaningless without an interpreting brain? If so how could the world around us exist in a physical sense with all the information everything emits through form, scent, sound, light, colour, texture etc etc.. if there was nothing capable of interpreting the information?
I'm fairly certian that EVERYTHING physical contains information in some form, otherwise we could not percieve it and thus would not deem it as physical. However does all information elicit some form of emotional response?
How can we digitally interpret information? If we create robotics fundamentally different in their response to, and understanding of external information, would we still be able to understand and relate to them in an emotional way?
I suppose everything IS just information. Because without information things simply wouldn't exist in a physical sense, to be physical an object MUST emit some form of information.
This however makes me think a touch deeper, if everything physical is simply information in a form we relate to with our five senses, how is information that is mediated through digital means ANY different? An invention is physical once it is built but merely a thought before, so how is the thought any less real/physical than the invention into which it evolved? Hmmm maybe thought/information/ideas are more "physical" than I had believed before thinking this through.
Is emotion just our personal rating system of relevance/importance/effect of information?
do we rate and understand information by how it makes us feel emotionally?
is emotion necessary for the interpretation of information, or is it just a product of us observing the information?
with no information do we feel no emotion?
*research ensues*
