Thoughts After Reading The First Half Of Enchanted Objects
In the book Enchanted Objects, David Rose describes four futures of technology: Terminal world, Prosthetics, Animism and Enchanted Objects. Among them, David believes that “the most promising and pleasing future” is enchanted objects “where technology infuse ordinary things with a bit of magic to create a more satisfying interaction and evoke an emotional response”, while describes terminal world as a nightmare for the cold screens lacking of humanity, “not fulfill a deep fundamental human desire in a enchanting way”.
I agree that the enchanted objects future is pleasing and fasciating. I think it is what current product design is doing right now, adding magic (technology) to ordinary everyday objects. However, I think differently with the terminal world part. Terminal world represents a future filled with glass slabs showing screens according to Dave Rose. He argues that this future would offer only the same thing just in different size and at different places. To me, I have never thought of glass slab as a technology future. I always think it only as a medium to show digital screens. If thinking about a future for glass slabs, of course that is the conclusion: same thing, different size, different place. As I look at those glass slabs, I always think it would be great that one day we could get rid of those slabs and interact with the technology behind them with our bare hands. I imagine the future for the technology now sits behind the glass slabs is not a terminal world. It would be something new, maybe people can draw the screen out in the air with their hands, or maybe not screens but digital objects that people can interact with. I don’t know how people can do that now. But I think the glass slabs are replaceable as media of technology, just like you can use a cup or a bowl to contain water.
The second part of the book talks about six human drives with plenty of stories, product design concepts and examples. It is interesting and exciting to see how people make designs started from those drives and the designs evolved over time. What I don’t quite resonate with is the examples that Dave Rose suggests in the drive Telepathy. He mentions an enchanted wall “that could display, through lines of colored light, the trends and patterns in your loved ones’ moods”, thinks it would bring great benefit to our lives and relationships. When I read the question he writes in the book “would household members choose to share the status of their moods with each other? Why not?”, I literally said “No, I don’t”. What is for sure is that I want to know my families’ hidden thoughts and emotions. That is right. But do I want to be known? That is another question. Of course, I would want to share my mood with my family during most of the time. There also some times that I don’t. For example, when I am upset about something that I don’t want my mom to know about. However, because the wall displays that I am in a low mood, my mom is so worried that keeps asking what is wrong with me, which makes my mood even lower. I think even between family, mood is still an important part of privacy. After this, I started thinking of several example that David Rose mentions in this chapter: the Cerebro, the listening devices from spy world, the wall displays moods, the Weasley family clock, the Google Latitude Doorbell. Most of them are out from the desire to know other people’s status. But, since telepathy is about human to human connections, isn’t it a two way going thing that both wanting to know others and whether wanting to be known are important? In most of the example listed above, I feel like they ignore the last part or assume that people would want to be known. However, people don’t actually want to be known about everything even by their loved ones. In that case, the wall displays moods, the Google Latitude Doorbell would become a burden to our relationships instead of a benefit.
