Theory

Our standpoint is that present reality is not inherently binding. In order to escape the monotony and dullness of everyday life or draw unprejudiced conclusions about society, one has to find a way to step outside reality. The feeling of reality is much like an equation, where certain conditions yield certain outcomes. As one experiences the world, they become acclimated to the results that they see every day. People come to expect certain things:

• Gravity causes things to fall down   
• Feet go on the ground   
• You see what is in front of you   
• When you move your head left you will see more of what is to your left   
• A sense of “thingness”  - the feeling of existence and control within a familiar reality

The Trippy Goggles change or wholly disrupt each of these. By seeing yourself on the ceiling or wall, you become a step outside of reality, as you contradict the rules that reality sets in place. This step outside a normalized feeling of connection between actions and results disrupts the normal experience of corporeal existence and leads to a number of interesting results.

Additionally, the goggles give the wearer a chance to take a step outside not only reality, but society. The experience of using the goggles is subjective, but it is not subject to the same terms as observation of a society from within. It is not subject to what the wearer would normally consider “normal.” This jump is necessary for an even-handed assessment of the merits of the society being observed.

While wearing the goggles, one must consciously process experiences and actions that would normally come instinctively. This can be as simple as walking up stairs, or it can be as complex as manipulating an object with your hands. This prevents anything from truly feeling “normal” or “everyday” and allows for a higher level of generalized thought while observing societal interactions.

This aspect of the goggles ties directly to psychogeographical theories about human movement. Instead of disrupting the normalized path of a human walking from point A to point B through the use of localized architectural or interaction-based interventions, the goggles use psychological and visual manipulation to change the experience of movement and existence.

The experience of viewing something through the goggles should be more captivating and thought-provoking than viewing the same area with the naked eye. It should be a profoundly introspective experience that simultaneously forces you to rethink the society surrounding you, even down to extremely simple interactions like walking past someone on the sidewalk.

By forcing the viewer to rethink their surroundings, the goggles enable them to observe present society not as a member, but as an outside, more objective observer. While the naked-eyed viewer may not give a second thought to someone avoiding eye contact or walking faster when they see someone else, the goggles force you to notice this and more. You need to notice all of it, because you’re forced to reprocess your surroundings.

Wearing the goggles also gives you a chance to escape the repetitiveness of everyday life, again allowing for a chance to rethink life as it is today. Some experiences with the goggles feel powerful or existential, while others are simply entertaining or amusing. These experiences also provide an opportunity for escape from daily routines and schedules. This allows the wearer to think about whether they truly want to be a part of these sort of organized, repetitive patterns of life.

As well as rigid patterns of time, the goggles make the wearer rethink rigid patterns of movement. As

Thoreau says:

“Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel in them much comparatively, because I am not in a hurry to get to any tavern, or grocery, or livery stable, or depot to which they lead” (Thorough, Walking Part 1, ¶19)

Most people in modern-day capitalistic society have a place of residence and at least one place of work. They go from their place of residence to place of work without pausing to stop and take in the scenery, and with as little interaction with others as possible. They never have a chance to make an educated decision about whether society in its present form is correct for them - indeed, they never get a chance to truly observe society except as a member of it.

Aesthetic

The goggles should feel like they could lift you off the ground and into the sky. They should fade away while on your face and feel like they aren’t quite there (for a greater sense of immersion and reorientation instead of disorientation or confusion).

Related Works

• The situationist Manifesto, available at http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/9

• Thoreau's Walking, available in three parts at http://thoreau.eserver.org/walking1.html

• Segment Disorientation by Sanjit Sethi, a video of which is available at http://sanjitsethi.com/portfolio/past/experimental-ambulation/segment-disorientation/

• In absence of Zero, a project by Brad Pitts available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl5HxZ0JHto

These are what I was talking about in my previous post-the connection between the bracelet and the handlet. With Rhino's crashing, the work I did yesterday was lost, but I was able to remodel it quickly since I knew what I was doing. First I made an ellipse, 45 mm by 65 mm, offset it by 3mm, and then extruded it 110 mm. After that, I made a simple curve, extruded it to go way beyond the ellipse, and then BooleanSplit it so the bottom half of the cylinder had the curve's shape. My second model, as I mentioned, was based off my concept and experience of anxiety. The third is the opposite, and I don't know which of the two I like more.

Our project, Coach Comfort, is a simple way to provide a better atmosphere in coach seating on a plane. More specifically, our project acts as a headrest that doubles as a tray table that folds down. Coach Comfort also offers the passenger a good amount of privacy while flying, which is something that is quite hard to come by nowadays, especially on airplanes. Our project keeps things simple but effecient in common problems such as; space, comfort, and accessability.

The main problem that Coach Comfort solves is actaully quite a well-known one. About 1.3 million people fly in coach class seats in the United States everyday, and almost every passenger knows the discomfort of sitting in coach seating. The passenger lacks leg room, a place to rest their head, and any sort of privacy. We decided that the most prominent problem out of these were the lack of a headrest and the lack of privacy. Our project easily fixes both of these problems in one simple motion. The conveniently placed head rest doubles as a wall for privacy and an easilly accessable tray table, which folds up and down swiftly, that also has a lock to keep it upright when the passenger is using it as a headrest..

Coach Comfort is a very important project because it fixes a problem that is well known around the world. It is only the beggining of what could be countless numbers of innovations that change the way we fly in the future. Part of the reason that this innivative idea doesn't already exist is that it seems like an impossible task to take on, escpecially considering the limited space in coach. We though of another innovation for coach which includes a small drawer under your seat that you could put larger personal belongings, like a backpack. This would provide more leg room, more comfort, and a more visually appealing area. In a world where everyone is flying and the ability to travel fast is becoming more important, shouldn't we be able to add in more comfort?

Peter:  If we were to take this project further and actually implement it into airplanes some serious reconstruction would need to be done on what we currently have. When making this our main objective was to create a well-made prototype that allowed people to see the movement and overall concept of our idea. The final product would have to be reshaped, resurfaced with different materials, and encase the electronics for tv controls.

As we started the brainstorming process we all had a lot of different ideas. We started with an idea of making furniture of of recycled items however we quickly scrapped this idea. We moved on to thinking about how we could improve furniture from a functional perspective. We started thinking about fixing the nuvu chairs and making the ideal nuvu chair. We explored the idead of stackable chairs with lots of pockets and a much cleaner raising and lowering system. We worked with a few coaches to start exploring current designs for furniture usability. While exploring this we started to realize a few things; The first being what we want for Nuvu chairs has been done thousands of times, the second being that we wanted to conquer a problem that is more important and has more attention worldwide. Once again we were back to brainstorming. We tried to think of things that everyone does involving furniture and thought about how uncomfartable flying in coach class on an airplane is.

The first thing we did with airplane seats was to think of all the problems and their specifics. We identified a few clear ones extremely fast; Lack of a comfartable place to put your head, Legroom, and privacy. We started thinking about those problems in specific and what we could do to fix them. At this point we realized that to truly create a sollution for coach seating we would need to set guidelines for ourselves. We decided that it would be important to build within the existing structures of the current coach seating system. If we wanted to build something that could actually be used we would not be able alter the amount of seats or the spacing that already exists in coach. To do this we realized that we would have to create something that doubled for multiple airplane features as well as our new innovations.

Our first idea was to create a tray table that doubled as a headrest and privacy curtain. We took this idea and ran with it. We started by creating thinking about two things, the headrest itself, as well as the sliding and turning mechanism for the headrest and tray table. Our first itteration was simply a tray table that had hooks on it, The user would be able to slide the tray to one side and than up. After making this first itteration we noticed that it's usability was not up to par theirfore making it more of a nuisance than something that would add comfort.

When thinking about the second itteration we decided to focus on it's usability. We started the exploring the idea of a tray table that would simply slide up on poles and than once it reached a certain point the poles would hinge and it would be a tray table. Unfortunatley to do this we realized we would have to have poles that extended much to high for it to work well. Although we did not use this itteration I still would consider it a sucess because it gave us a landmark for how we wanted the table/headrest to slide.

After talking about the 2nd iteration with a few coaches we came up with an idea for our table/headrest to come out of the armrest. We came up with a simple set of tracks that would guide the inside box onto a rotating piece of the track. We created a pin system that could lock the table/headrest in multiple different positions. The problem with this itteration was that we felt pins were too complicated. We wanted to stay true to our ideas about simplicity. 

For our third and final itteration we started brainstorming on what worked and what did not. We liked having our table/headrest coming our of the armrest and decided that would be the best place to base it off. At this point we also decided that we should focus on the asthetics of our project more than it's functionality. However this meant in no way that we would forget about that aspect. For our third itteration we designed a box that came out of the armrest. When the user would pull this box up he would first have only a headrest but than he could pull the headrest out and it would become a tray table. Although this was our final itteration if we had more time we would most likely create a way for the user to have his/her headrest available at the same time as his/her tray table.