What are the implications and significance of the participant-individual taking part as a protagonist in the story? The story here is not staged but unfolding in the now. As the protagonist maneuvers around, we explore how the communication object could play a part in the turning point of the story.

You are a lone protagonist, and you are in search of a stranger you are supposed to be with. As you walk around the space, all you hear is noise that reflect the sub-conscious questioning of you. As you cordially meet and greet others in search of that one person, you exchange handshakes with many. When you do meet the right person, both of the wrist-objects light up signifying the match and the pinnacle of the story. Background layers of calming sound aura further contribute to the narrative resolution.

What does it mean to be physical in physical cinema? Could the audience-participant contribute to moving the story forward by physically participating in the plot? What role could an individual take part in the unfolding set of events?

This is a story of a girl who breaks off her relationship with her boyfriend and leaves. In an attempt to win her heart back, the boyfriend must overcome several challenges. First he tries to call her, then he tries to throw her a gift (a proposal diamond ring), and finally proves his love that he will overcome any obstacle by running over mountains and ocean. Here the audience-participant contributes to moving the story forward. He/she calls and screams as loud as he/she can: "I Love You!"; next he/she throws a ring as far as he/she can so that it reaches her; in the final challenge, the participant must literally run as fast as he/she can to reach the destination within the time limit. As the conclusion of the story unfolds, the audience-participant witnesses an ending to whether the ex-boyfriend wins her heart back.

The Audio Bench has it's own story to tell and it will never tell the same story twice. This project explores how objects that surround us and is part of our everyday experiences can be designed with a storied voice – their re-telling of past time based on records captured in situ of their physical experiences in the designed environment. The design of storied objects is bounded by the object's point-of-view; objects have capabilities to record their experience, look back upon the captured records and reconfigure the recordings in order to re-play what actually happened.

Audio is linear: Imagine if you could listen to a stream of audio that gestures what it was about in a fraction of time that you would normally need to listen to an audio track. Audio Time-Lapse is the temporal compression and storied construction of a historical stream. The time-lapse is constructed from a set of every day events over the course of time. Events are woven in a sequence that expresses the object's point-of-view to humans who come and interact with the object. The time-lapse compression method adheres to cinematic continuity so that the story communication has gist, that is expressive and engaging.

The receiver opens the physical card and the "moment" that the card is open, the reaction and happenings around the card are captured (e.g. laughter, reading and commentary of the card, etc.). The temporal record is sent back to the original sender. This extends the experience cycle by actively creating and capturing a transactional loop between the receiver and the sender.

A transactional loop is designed into the experience of the greeting card. The design examines how a digital recording of this loop can change our value perception of the card experience. Time allows for the object to have more than a one time relationship and transaction with the human audience.

"TechStyle" is a next-generation electronic textile that incorporates input and output capabilities in the woven structure.

The e-fabric takes on a skin metaphor that can register the history of spatial displacement; the fabric expresses by means of color and pattern. It is designed with the idea of objects that might be touched or sat on. It is designed to change color pixels and sense pressure coordinates throughout the surface; this technology allows the system to remember interactions and draw traces of history. The fabric interfaces to help communicate a "sense of chairness" and story beyond the seat's formal and functional quality.

What story would a building tell you? It's story is told in a series of event sequences that is in a time-lapse form. The opportunity is that we could use the time-lapse technique to capture and show temporal facets of an object's life. Time-lapse is a technique that can reveal more than the mundane tasks of how people use the building, spaces, and artifacts. By re-processing what is captured we can reveal implicit rhythms of experiences and history; it is a way that can show "lived time".

Captured as 2-dimensional images over time, we photographically captured Frank O. Gehry's Stata Center on the MIT campus where the time-lapse was framed differently for each particular location and weather condition. The time-lapse reveals the interaction of the building with light and with human encounters; it characterizes the rhythm and flow of spaces through time that may resist a human story.

Have you looked up recently? Organically-shaped pods hang from the ceiling. The pods are embedded with narrative structures to provoke a re-thinking of our relationship to objects and spaces, and explore how objects utter in response to its encounters over time.

Passersby and visitors engage in a gaze encounter with the pod-like entity that hangs above their head; this encounter triggers a response from the living character, BeBe, found living within the pod. BeBe imparts a day-to-day dependent narrative that is expressive and reactive to an accumulation of past interactions with passersby and visitors. BeBe knows when you stare at her; beware - because she will stare back at you!

Five asynchronous discussion groups on Usenet were visualized. These groups were recorded on 09/12/2001, and the discussions centered around the 9/11 incident. The visualization incorporated interactivity with motion attributes to better express the dynamics of message exchanges within a threaded discussion. By using a mouse to pull on a discussion group, the vibrance and heated conversation exchanges become visible (through visual motion). The yellow and red color detail the different participants. The segment length of each color represent the amount of posts contributed by a participant. The motion tension of the Lining represent the overall dynamics of the group's participation energy.

The writer's room visualizes an evolving landscape of Richard Kostelanetz's long-time interest in describing a life — in this case, his own — in books and electronic media in ways other than chronological, continuous narrative. By bringing these elements together as never before—to be read, projected, heard, and seen — a truth and completeness is (perhaps) realized that was impossible in continuous prose.

Biographical, textual information is augmented onto the physical space (window, canvas, fireplace, floor) and writer-related objects (typewriter, ink bottle, desk). The representation of the physical space was designed to mimic his writing room in Manhattan, New York to express the evolving prose of the writer. The installation was instrumented for real-time display (audio and video) and correspondence between exhibit-visitors and the writer so to portray the changing characterization of Kostelanetz.

Examples of information design for print media and logo design.

Animated emails are composed amidst the accumulated correspondence between gallery visitors and an anonymous writer. Asynchronous drops of mail express a sense of slow time, while the portal stands as testimony to a real correspondence between visitors and an anonymous writer.

An exploration of how to juxtapose and frame events to reveal characteristics of how one lives, perceives, digests, and transits. The installation of LuLu is visually framed and edited to show enough information without being literal. The audience is the voyeur in this piece.

A story about psychological scale portrayed through two characters named Holo and Fernes.

An investigation to visualize online public discussion spaces. The social dynamics within the community are not obvious by looking at the strings of text-based content. A careful reading of the conversation threads allows the viewer to discern complexities and nuances of social interactions. Expressive social visualization, however, is an alternative medium for effectively conveying such information. In order to animate the dynamic social qualities found within the static data of a Usenet interface; motion is used as the communicative agent for this visual translation.

Visualizing broad views of the overall online social landscape down to the level of individual interactions. Here we use Design to explore graphical legibility of social spaces consisting of conversation threads. What are the people like? Are they excited? Are they always around? Online text-based social spaces such as Usenet, chats, and e-mail comprise of interactions amongst people. It is difficult to infer social nuances and complexities in these spaces as we would infer in the physical world. How do we design a visual language that conveys social meaning and reveals social dynamics online?

Ethnographic studies in public school cafeterias suggest that students territorialized their space during lunch period. They defined their space on the cafeteria table by laying out food and other objects they brought in their lunch containers. These gestures indicated that there was a need for privacy and perhaps an opportunity for secrecy. There was not much social interaction in the cafeteria either.

By designing a lunchbox that physically laid out a theatrical-stage metaphor, the concept was to create a companion character for kids that would support an enjoyable lunch period. The character design could be of any kind and trend. In order to take out the packed meal, the character mouth is zipped open to help to unpack his/her lunch. It also defines the kid's space on the table while catering to inner compartments that store other items for play.