Writing

Tely: Tele-Absence

Prototyping a device that orients itself to the motion of a distant person

Date

2020

Duration

4 weeks

Project Type

Hardware prototype

Keywords

Pan-tilt servo motor, ESP32, Firebase, Grasshopper

Role

Hardware prototyping, software programming, 3D modeling

Overview

Tely is a device that orients itself to the motion of a distant person, in a way conveying presence through absence.

Narrative

Portal

My project started with an exploration of the concept of portal between two rooms and I was interested in capturing a snapshot of the other room (in this case, a point cloud) that could be viewed from the first room.

II. Mediated Presence - Motion Sculpture

Then, rather than viewing the distant space in a detailed, fleshed out way, I thought about a mediated experience, partly inspired by the reading The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista, where the space retains the memory of their users and responds back. So I started exploring the memory of space through virtual sculptures of their motion, projected back to space in augmented reality (this became a separate project in progress).

III. Tele-Absence

Finally, I've decided to push this to the other end of the spectrum where the presence of the distant person is no longer materialized, but passively felt; what I landed on is a device that is very figural, but at the same time it registers the absence of figurality of the distant presence.

I was also referencing this commentary from Elliott Malkin, which attempts to theorize tele-absence. Reading a novel without a certain letter, it actually accentuates it; the absence becomes the presence. For my project, the device moves when there is motion from the distant person, and it stays fairly quiet when they are static - it highlights the absence more than the presence.