GMU:Human and Nonhuman Performances II SS16/Kan Feng

Purpose

"Analogter" is an interactive and automatic calculation machine which simulates the interface and logic of Abacus, and above all, enlarges the analog process of Abacus to calculate the amounts of visitors in a performative form.

As a calculation process which needs to be well trained and once defined abacus as a efficient tool, nowadays literally causes hardly use of abacus. Compared to nowadays calculation technology operated by simple click by button, abacus enlarges the process of calculation in an analog way. The calculation process which used to be passively controlled by human is going to be designed as an interactive and automatic calculation installation calculating the amounts of visitors.

In this project, I want to design a interactive installation based on the algorithm of Chinese Modern Abacus, which has one bead on each rod in the upper deck and four beads each in the bottom for decimal computation.

What is abacus

The Abacus is at once one of the oldest, most enduring, and efficient products of the human mind. It appeared early before arabic numbers, so it doesn’t have a sense of numbers. Abacus does the calculation according to the different beads and the position of them to represent different numbers. The upper bead represents 5 and each bead below the horizontal beam represents 1. And the beads are considered to be calculated when they move close to the horizontal beam.

Interactive Process

The interactive experience plays the key role to achieve the purpose listed, and two most important factors are:

Beads: The "beads" are key symbols in the outlook of this installation. I want to use objects which can straightly represent what human beings are in our normal life. Hence, when visitors play with the "beads" in our digital platform, they will realize what this installation reveals actually is about the adapting data of humans which is stored and calculated in a way of how abacus works. So, I come out several ideas which can be representative of humans in some certain aspects:

- Perfume - Alcohol bottle - Boxing glove - Toilet paper

Experience: The experience through interactive process can be revealed in several aspects when it's comparing to the experience of playing abacus.

- order-sequence movement of "beads" - sound feedback - cognition between pattern and numbers

Difficulties

The initial idea of this installation is to make the calculation more interesting, in a different set from the abacus, and to reveal a social view upon human beings in this social planet. However, there are several difficulties needed to be solved as listed below:

- visitors should behavior by their own intention, which is different from a user of abacus who already knows the logic behind.

- visitors should realize that the set of installation is a new way to calculate instead of only changing numbers on the screen without connection in between.