“ PBJ-14 ” ( Jones , 2006 )
Interview / Article byJonah Brucker - Cohen
In the multifaceted world of consumer electronics and fetishistic object , house decorator and corporations essay to create products that evoke some kind of emotional or esthetic connection to their drug user in lodge produce forms of “ gadget lustfulness ” and indoctrination to keep people buy more . Taking this creed to an extreme is London - free-base creative person and designer Crispin Jones . From his compelling effort as a graduate student at the Royal College of Art ’s Computer - Related Design MA to his professional art - meets - product - design collaborations and solo projects , Jones ’ work examines the turbulent and playful side of consumer devices and their association to human politeness , forcible thresholds , and originative methods of automizing repetitive tasks and action .
Gizmodo caught up with Jones to talk over his approach to design , products , and how technology should be customized to our province of mind and location of use , rather than a single gadget for everything . icon and interview after the jump .
Name : Crispin Jones
Age:33
instruction : MA in Computer Related Design , Royal College of Art , 2000 ; BA(Hons ) in Fine Art ( Sculpture ) , Kingston University , 1996 .
association : Independent Designer , Director of Mr Jones Watches , Partner in Robson & Jones .
exposition ( selected ): On Time , Museum für Gestaltung Zürich ( Zurich , 2007 ) , Designersblock ( Milan 2007 ) , NABABOOM ( Milan 2007 ) , British Design Day ( Milan 2007 ) , 100 % Design ( Tokyo , 2006 ) , Traveling Apothecary ( London 2006 ) , ISEA ( San Jose 2006 ) , Electrical Fantasia ( Yokohama 2006 ) , Bank Art Life ( Yokohama 2005 ) , Touch Me , V&A Museum , ( London 2005 ) , This is Today ( Milan 2004 ) , DAF Tokyo ( Tokyo 2003 ) , CG - Arts Festival ( Tokyo , 2003 ) , Prix Ars Electronica ( Linz , 2002 ) .
URLs : www.mr - jones.org
MrJonesWatches.com
RobsonandJones.com
GIZMODO:”PBJ-14″ is an Ultra Mobile Portable Computer ( UMPC ) or tablet microcomputer commission by the Japanese company “ PBJ ” intend to nurture a impression of emotional attachment between drug user and machine by becoming a “ PC for Poets . ” Why was this connexion important to you ? Do you envision this approach becoming an integral element in the future of personal electronics ?
CJ : Well , the context of this direction was that PBJ are a society who distribute tablet PCs in the Japanese market . They do not presently have any of their own models , they buy and trade name generic models from Taiwan and then disperse them in Japan ( mostly in the B2B food market , rather than directly to consumer ) . I was ask to design a model for them as a first flip at what a PBJ own - model pc could be . I thought it was quite important to have something that was classifiable and aimed at a wide interview than their normal business securities industry .
" UMPC by Crispin Jones " – video ( Nipponese TV , Jones , 2006 )
I took an approaching recollect about how we could make a machine that had a more human quality , specifically I was thinking about the direction in which we use a single computer for both business piece of work and also personal thing . I always thought it was a morsel strange to reckon at family photograph on the same screen / machine which one also does concern work on . I thought that there could be a space for PBJ to make the motorcar that is specifically for personal activeness ( also the constraints of the UMPC — no keyboard , small covert etc have in mind that it is n’t a great burst for doing even body of work on ) . I was thinking a lot about seem at photos with supporter and family — it seems to me incongruous that we take more photos than ever before with digital television camera , but we seldom seem to partake in them . I remember ( and this is n’t exactly a long time ago ! ) people used to have their pic printed out and then look through them with friends .
One of the main activities we thought the UMPC would be good for is engineer and sharing photos with friends — you may pass the twist around because it ’s quite small and peradventure get back that experience of looking at pic together with friends ( rather than simply emailing a few figure of speech ) . In a way I think the current situation where we have a single machine for all our activities — everything from writing letters to have it off single to file away revenue enhancement comeback is correspondent with the emergence of domestic food processing equipment . Historically one would grease one’s palms a motor to which various attachments could be attached ( liquidiser , whisks , cleaning brush etc ) , eventually these specific functions were separated out into unlike devices and I think there is space to do this with the computer ; so I think there will be more undivided use gimmick , rather than the current ambitiousness towards a undivided unified gadget which does everything .
“ Prudens : The Discretion Watch ” ( Jones , 2006 )
GIZMODO : With “ Prudens ” you ’ve created a watch encased in unintelligible material stand for to conceal the sentence from those who are not its wearer . or else of a face , the watch displays the right time to its wearer by deliver a “ impulse ” to the wearer ’s carpus when they rotate their arm in a “ non - discreet ” mode so as to void making its wearer calculate “ rude ” or “ rushed ” when accompanied by others . Why did you decide on pulse as an information infection method and how easy was this for its wearer to learn ? Did you feel as if this watch achieved its desired end ?
CJ : Well , the pulses were a dewy-eyed way to transmit haptic information so that it would be invisible to other people . To give a flake of background to the project – I worked on the pattern of this watch withGraham Pullinand it rise from our dissatisfaction with watches available to dim people — these generally decrease into two camps : the traditional form has a hinge brass on a conventional analogue video display — you lift the face and palpate the perspective of the hour and minute manus with your finger gratuity . The forward-looking form has a button you weigh and the spotter speak the time to you . We feel that both of these answer to be quite unsatisfactory ( the first is a rather lazy adaption of picket for the sighted , the latter is inconceivable to consult discreetly ) , so we endeavor to create a time - telling mechanics that could be consulted discretely and without relying on sight . “ Prudens ” works , it ’s not a thoroughgoing solution by any substance , but you’re able to learn to read it . Our intention with the project was to create a proposal / geographic expedition rather than a final product and in those terms the undertaking did live up to its aim .
“ Electrophile ” , ( Jones , 2000 )
GIZMODO : “ Electrophile ” is a keyboard meant for fans writing to their preferent celebrities from the website “ CelebrityEmail.com . ” The keyboard is outfitted with metal contacts so that the more Holy Writ the rooter type , the stronger the shock absorber is deliver . Thus the connection between fans and celebrities becomes one that depends on pain sensation thresholds , ie . the longer you may stick out the shock , the more “ devotion ” you have for your fame icon . Why should forcible pain be consociate with celebrity devotion and how successful was the project ? What other types of fandom show apparatus could you foresee in this scenario ?
CJ : Well , Electrophile was on one level a corrective machine . I suppose it was strange that citizenry would invest so much worked up energy in a relationship which does n’t really exist ( the relationship with the celebrity ) . The keyboard is a way to retrain the devotee to get over their compulsion . On another storey I was thinking about how the typed on - covert word does n’t really have the same caliber as the hand written word . I was revolutionize by a story I remember reading about three buff of the band Take That who drop an intact weekend write “ we love Take That ” over and over on a farseeing roll of paper . I was struck by the way that this activity would be utterly meaningless if you translated it to an email — the traces of the bodily activity would be lost , so on one floor Electrophile is a cock for this variety of devotee action in that it take some physical survival to the writing of long messages . I ’m not indisputable how successful Electrophile was in terms of an synergistic nontextual matter — multitude come across it in the gallery space do not tend to be the kind of devoted sports fan who would expend hour and hour writing to their idol . So mostly mass would tap few keys to get a impact and then walk on . For this intellect I acquire documentation which place the object into a narrative context .
“ Katazukue ” ( Jones , 2005 )
GIZMODO : “ Katazukue ” is a impost built table with conveyor belts that periodically move to ensure that the table always stays clear . Since there is a possibility that breakable particular might be on the tabular array , this action at law present a item of tension between forcible aim , the spaces they inhabit , and the social conventions they exhibit . What type of reactions did you have with this equipment and how successful was it in attain its goal ?
CJ : Well , exchangeable to “ Electrophile ” the expo of “ Katazukue ” was not especially meaningful to the ideas of the spell . multitude encountering it in a gallery would not practice it as a mesa , so there was rarely any accumulation of thing on the tabletop to be swept off ( unless the gallery staff had put some affair on it ) . Some friends did direct me a scene from the initiative of a show it was in where someone had placed a glass of cherry-red wine-coloured on it which was swept onto the floor , so I guess that somebody had the full “ Katazukue experience ” . In price of articulating the ideas behind the piece I was quite well-chosen with it . I wanted to convey a sensation that technology both devote us something whilst also taking something away , so with “ Katazukue ” you never need to clean house up after yourself , but you also execute the risk that your possessions would be destroyed .
“ ZXZX ” ( Jones , 2002 )
GIZMODO : “ ZXZX ” consists of a hardware gadget create to flirt the 1980s computer game “ Track & Field ” where instead of a human player compact subsequent keys one after the other to make the runner “ run , ” you ’ve created a motorize system that press the key more quickly than any human could . The result is a method acting of “ cheating ” the estimator by automating the running unconscious process . Why did you decide on using this particular biz ? How does cheating the computer add to the gaming experience and how could you see future organisation reply to these types of manipulations ?
CJ : Well , the excerption of “ Track & Field ” was crucial . I was concerned in the room that betray in effect like the Olympics is absolutely bete noire to the philosophy of the sportswoman , whereas cheating in video game is central to the experience . On one level of course I want to create the intuitive experience of check something pounding the keys that fast and construe how fast the reference in the game could be made to run ( 100 metre in 8.29 moment ) , one of the disappointing thing about conventional cheating equipment in games is that they go in an inconspicuous style – you could not see the lines of codification inside them being executed . I made this body of work around the time that Gary Kasparov lost his chess peer against the IBM crack computer “ Big Blue ” and I thought it was interesting that we had reached a point where human being could no longer claim mastery of the car , so “ ZXZX ” was a vision of a future where human race were no longer flat postulate in the gaming experience , but rather they were simply involved in stone one machine against another .
GIZMODO : What labor are you currently make on ? How are they similar or different than your past projects ?
CJ : Some of my time I spend working in partnership with another designer , Dominic Robson . We mainly work on the design and development of interactive objects for museums and other public spaces ( we ’ve done things for the Science Museum in London and Tate Modern ) . At the moment we ’re play on a bespoke light installation for a company boardroom as well as work on some unexampled donation boxes for the Tate .
“ Tengu ” ( Jones , 2006 )
In my independent study I ’m put to work exclusively on things intend for production . I ’m hear not to make one - off things at the moment because it seems to me to be unsustainable as a working method unless it ’s framed within some sort of donnish research circumstance ( which I ’m not particularly interested in ) . One of the things I ’m influence on is Tengu , a machine with a little light-emitting diode face that reply to sound ( so if you play music he looks like he ’s singing along ) . I design Tengu for Solid Alliance in Japan ( who I remember are a really strange and interesting company ) , I met them a twosome of age ago and when I was back in London I decided to produce something to propose to them . I developed a prototype , which I showed to them , they liked it and we gestate it to be available in the store in early July .
In parallel to this I am producing a limited edition series of watches . I found a manufactory in China who would let me give rise a relatively minuscule quantity of watch ( 500 unit ) , so I train a set of five designs each of which is being produced in a limited edition of 100 composition , with each watch numbered on the back of the typeface . I expect to receive the main shipment of watches in early July , but people can currently reserve a specific modelling online at www.MrJonesWatches.com . I ’m quite mad because I have consummate control of the undertaking ; at the moment I ’m see about distribution and trying to place the sentinel with different shops .
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