prosthesis and the extention of the human form

For my prosthesis I am focusing on the extension of the body not so much of addition physically, no exoskeletons or replacement limbs for me, but an extension emotionally, often with a prosthetic there is some alienation a cold solid object to which you attach or that augments, its somewhat like a spork it helps you do lots of things but you wish you had a separate spoon and fork since they have more character. I had a think about how we give an emotional attachment to objects. as soon as the brief was given to us i made a gestural drawing as a basic "prosthetic" I wanted to make, I also wrote down 3 words the first being emotion. a came up with a bean bag since they are big, soft, round, squishy, its like a big insulative marshmallow

How do you portray or preferably enhance emotion between the user and the object? sound, sound was the main area i focused on. after hearing the whale like calls of slowing down audio
I also used video to support the sound, i set up max to create 2 vidoeos from 4, 3 which were prerecorded of the texture of me, the texture of the beanbag, and the inside of my mouth, I also had a live camera with microphone with a torch to film the inside of the beanbag visualising the way the beanbag reacts to the actions applied visualy and audibly to it.
I was planning to build the built the prosthetic on the Monday night before but this was delayed to Tuesday night due to mental incoherency of having a cold.


For switches I used cardboard which was bowed outward in the centre with tinfoil contacts. the benefit of this method was that I could create large sensing pads instead of fumbling around trying to find small little switches,also it had the ability to flex and take on the shape of the beanbag without deforming the shape or feel dramatically. and its more fun actually making something instead of just showing something you bought at the shops.
unfortunately one of the sensors died in transit.

My presentation wasn't fancy I just talked about my idea. max msp threw a conveniently timed hissy fit which I wouldn't be bothered restarting to fix. I could have glossed it up to cover up the flaws but as we saw if there is just presentation and limited substance its quite easy to see through. at the end of my explination there werent many questions hopefully that meant i got my ideas across adequately, or with a incoherent rambling and no pretty moving things on a screen to show, the class got lost.

Ive come up with a cutesy idea for my documentation, a more effective way to show the emotional attachment between the prosthesis and the user. a faux ad for it. showing a user and its prosthetic sharing moments together. skipping, having tea, going for a swim. I dont think i will actualy make a glossy version just a mock up.