We are turning our Instagram and this blog post over to Audrey this week.
Here is her project description for the residency at Slip Rabbit:
Home Data: Materializing Domestic Internet of Things Data
Smart thermostats. Home assistants. Smart locks. Connected security cameras. Smart fridges. Programmable lights. As home dwellers, we are promised everyday seamlessness, increased security, efficient energy usage, and entertainment. In exchange, homes become new sites of data production, collection, and analysis.
In this project, I am interested in investigating the historical logs of data captured by these connected devices in the home (also understood as Internet of Things (IoT) devices). While much focus in interaction design today is on the real-time use of data to respond to home dwellers’ needs, I am concerned with the longer traces that are left by these devices and services.
During my artist residency at Slip Rabbit Studio, I am investigating ways to materialize this long-term data into everyday ceramicware objects. Together with Timea Tihanyi, we are working on a workflow that translates data points into new textures on porcelain cups that are 3D printed at Slip Rabbit studio.
This data, based on current IoT products, can be the number of times a door was open, the constant noise level in the home, or trends in temperature in the home. Because the data is used ‘in the moment’, it often doesn’t leave a trace. Home dwellers are left with no other choice but to trust the data that led to changes in their home. This opens questions around the validity of the data, the sensibility of sensors, and the real effects of data collected. As a result, I wonder if IoT data could also be imaginary. Could we think about capturing data such as how many times racoons pass by, the intensity of the television glow, or the number of termites inside the home’s timber. IoT data is often invisible and untraceable: provoking our imaginations to run wild, dreaming of what data is considered, and what data remains uncaptured.
By creating a closer relationship to data in the home this project aims at examining home data capture and production through data physicalization. By blurring the line between real data, and potential and imaginary data, we will investigate the complex ways in which we encounter with connected objects in the home. This project is a conceptual probe about the future of domestic technologies. It is as much a deep dive into the material world of 3D printing and ceramic as it is an exploration of forms of data collection and accumulation in the home.