Wear me: grow & shrink!

 

Seeing the world kid level (- 1 foot)

Seeing the world as an adult (+ 1 foot)

(Thanks for the photos, Emily!)

Inspired by a wearable mirrors piece, I tried to prototype a different way of seeing the world. There's a lot of parent and kid pairs who visit the Exploratorium, and I thought I'd take advantage of that, to allow kids to see the world from an adult's perspective, and for adults to remember what it's like to be a kid. I visited Singapore this winter break for the first time after 15 years. This time, all the buildings seemed to have shrunk! I wanted to capture the wonder of that experience with clarity and without the requisite time delay. ...kinda like that stuff Alice eats when she's in wonderland!

Ideally, parent and child would put on their respective periscope and observe their surroundings. I can imagine conversations like "wow, everything seems so short!" or "huh, everything looks different from down here." I hope that this exhibit can teach the skill of observing the world carefully and reexamining assumptions that there's only one way of seeing things. Dan brought up an interesting idea of introducing discussion questions about common tall-person or short-person problems: for example, being tall, it's harder to judge what is an average height, because you can't use your own height as a standard.

Building this exhibit, I didn't know what a periscope is and that the mirrors are supposed to be in 45 degree angles. Leaving the piece unenclosed was also a problem because it introduced distracting images into the scene. My next iteration will be enclosed and include more ergonomically friendly parts.

Moving forward, I'm thinking more about how to design the user interaction so that it's more than a regular periscope - e.g. http://www.amazon.com/Green-Periscope-Wide-Field-View/dp/B00A5X1RNG/ I'm thinking more about how to create the illusion of actually feeling taller or shorter, perhaps taking into account how you have to move your head up for a child and down as an adult. I'd also like to play with taller-shorter interactions. I'm thinking about the possibilities of having users perform actions (e.g. picking up objects, going through small spaces) to help them get into their new point of view. There is a tension and disparity between what is seen and what is real. For example, wearing the get-taller periscope and reaching for objects, I have to reach higher than I think I have to because my brain thinks I'm taller than I am. I'm wondering how to play with this tension while playing with the shrinking/ growing Wonderland illusion.