Mediated Intimacy Final Project: The Vulcan Mind Meld
If you have been reading my blog regularly (besides Mr. Whey Protein and Mrs. Ringtones, my two loyal spamming followers) you may have noticed or not, the heavy tendency to post on two of my four classes, Physical Computation and Computational Media. My reticence about one of my other classes, Mediated Intimacy, is due in part because that blogging was not required protocol for the class and because it is primarily a seminar class with little physical output. The subjects we cover are so incisive and omni-relevant that the pressure to blog them was/is incredibly difficult. I am ruing that choice to not blog about them because we covered some amazing artists’, authors’, and scientists’ work associated with, well, mediating intimacy. I promise to write more about it later! But for now, let me focus on our final project in three parts:
1. Dream up a future technology of intimacy and connection over distance. Write a User’s Manual to accompany it including a drawing with parts labeled, a detailed description of how it is used, warnings, etc.
2. Write a story about a person or people who are using your technology. You will need to express the invented ‘physics’ of the world in which your invention exists. In other words, where you rely on new general capacities available in the future world, you will need to describe those things, in order to situate your invention. The point here is to think through and express what the technology might do from an emotional and social perspective, based on what you know about existing technologies and ideas about intimacy, as well as your ability to imagine consequences of not-yet-possible devices.
3. Present your invention, its context, its function, and its potential or known emotional and social effects on users.
This final was a pure joy to execute. In conceiving of ideas, I cheated myself out of dreaming up a whole new world for this product and focused really on something that I new and that I could construct easily, but still was humorous and cohesive. I came up with, borrowing from Star Trek, the Vulcan Mind Meld.
I had worked on a presentation a week prior and used the mask that you see in the photos for this project; a decent example of cross-curricular projects. I spent most of the time working on the MANUAL and designing the packaging. I actually searched everywhere for some cheap plastic encasing besides the stupid plastic I ended up using. No big deal as prototyping was not required for this assignment. The project went over well! I often tell people that since I hate to present, my main objective is not necessarily to inform or engage but to make people laugh. I could be in the wrong business!
When it came to conceptualizing this project, actually, the mind meld was the first thing to pop up in my head. Of course, it it’s natural state, the process of mind melding is just that, a process. So turning this process into a product was the natural and easier choice. I suppose I could have made it a “technique” and built a project around that…maybe in the form of an infomercial. Ahh, an idea gone to waste.
So I had my idea and I knew how to execute it. As said before, production was hung up on the manual and the design, but other than those applied hours, everything went smoothly. The design was quick and not indicative of a lot of thought. But in the end, with the cloudy packaging plastic that I used, it ended up looking like a dollar store toy- which I was fine with.
I made the manual in an hour (though the information contained within I spent a little more time with). This is evident by the obviously awful graphic elements. It’s fairly typical of a cheaply made manual with all of the categories you’d find in a regular one. I worked off of a manual for a solar chip which included topics such as applications, calibration, etc. This was not the best type of manual to work with but I found the organization standard to most other manuals. Plus, I only had an hour!
I presented it to a panel consisting of my peers, my professor, the wonderful Kio Stark, and three guests from design and psychological fields (I am being vague on purpose! I have forgotten who they were!). Just as I’d hope, they laughed! I suppose this helped gloss over some of the major shortcomings of my project. When pressed with time, I tend to focus on the physical wow factor and comedy. They’ll eventually catch on, but at least they enjoy it. There is nothing like sitting through a bad and boring project. But bad and funny? At least you’ve expended some calories laughing your ass off.
I hastily read through the manual because I was last to go and we had already gone beyond our class time. When I finished, I received the questions from the panel. “What are the consequences of such a device?” “How do people feel about being tagged with an II number?”
I answered appropriately and as best as I could, but I think everyone knew that it was not as well though out as Roddenberry or Dick. But, you know, I only had an hour.
I am pasting my short story in it’s entirety here. I thought it wasn’t too bad. This took me another hour outside of class. I hate hasty writing but sometimes it needs to be done. So excuse the excuse!!!!!! Enjoy!
The Vulcan Mind Meld Mask
It was literally burning a hole in his bag. The wax coating on the exterior pooled in droplets that hung at the bottom for a second until gravity won them over.
“Mom, my bag is hot! It’s burning my back!”
“What? Come here!” She pulled him close. They were in the parking lot of a mall about five minutes from their house. It was the boy’s birthday, and a solid day of shopping yielded a “toy” from the Discovery Store, the only one left; it had been returned only five minutes prior to them walking in and asking for it. The boy had seen the commercial on television: “The Vulcan Mind Meld Mask! No one is ever too far away!”
Promises of a pseudo tangible interaction with someone anywhere in the universe never meant that much to him until his father left five years ago. He said he was leaving to “make sure he and mommy stay safe.”
“I told you not to open the package! It’s too hot outside to have this in your bag!” The manual cautioned against extreme heat. The day’s temperature had reached 65˚C. She placed it in her purse- all made of insulated foil to keep things inside relatively stable.
She opened the door to the house. The cool air from inside could not be cool enough. The walk from the car was dizzyingly oppressive, the heat from the sun beating on their skin with the intensity of a bass drum.
Once inside, the boy ran to his room and leapt for his bed. “Mommy, Mommy,…MASK MASK!”
His mother came in and tossed the toy on the bed. It was 4 in the evening, and his father would only be awake for a couple more hours. “Read the instructions before you do anything. Then come get me; I’ll be in the kitchen.”
The boy slid the mask out of it’s bag. Bone white. He picked it up and ran his fingers over the surface. Textured, like the pages of a book they had on display at his school. This made him want one. He set it down and inverted the packaging. Some other components fell out: a small battery the size of a pill, a bound cord and a leaflet manual of poor Martian quality. He grabbed the manual and began to read.
His mother sat down at the kitchen table, weary from the day trip. She picked up a small screen lying a couple feet from her. It was small and translucent, edgeless even. It immediately turned on. The screen filled with words begging to be touched: “Local News, National News, Entertainment, Sports, Lifestyle, Arts”. She chose local news and started at the top. After a couple minutes, the phone rang. It was her sister. If the screen remained idle for more than five minutes, it is programmed to turn off. It turned off. His mother stayed on the phone for ten minutes. Afterwards, she returned to the screen only to realize that she had lost her place. The begging words reappeared and this time, she chose “Entertainment.”
Had the phone not rang, and had she continued reading all the way down the page, his mother would have encountered the following:
‘Mind Meld Mask’ Link with Boy’s Crime
A boy aged 16 who used Jasco’s Mind Meld Mask to mercilessly pummel
a friend in metaphysical world went on a rampage shortly thereafter, harming
four more in the ensuing violence. He was apprehended later on that day as
witnesses described the boy’s whereabouts.
The boy told the police that his friends “egged him to attack his friend because
he wouldn’t actually get hurt.” The boy also said that afterward, his mind was in
such a frenzy that he could not stop himself.
The unidentified victim said he suffered from serious mental abuse from the ordeal.
The irresistable conclusion was that it was the influence of the mask. Many people
had much to answer for, whether they were heads of Jasco, department stores, or
suppliers. Professor Oren Sessions, head of Psychiatry at New York University says,
“It has produced a canker among the impressionable young, which all reasonable
people desire to see stamped out at once”.
Mr Roger Gray, for the defence, said: “The link between this crime and such
metaphysical toys, particularly the mask, is established beyond any reasonable doubt”.
New York TImes, July 2, 2046.
“Finished!” Technically, he only read the instructions and nothing else.
He took the cable and inserted one end into the mask and the other into his keyboard. A small hole on the keyboards face immediately filled with light, and right before him, an ethereal red screen appeared. The screen asked for a ten digit IIN number, someone’s International Identification Number. He pulled a wrinkled piece of plastic out of his bag. On it was stamped “Dad – 4345590832″.
The International Civil Identification Organization came into power in 2035, when the first of the human convoy to Mars was attacked and destroyed by unknown beings on Mars. The ship had not even landed. Almost all of the Earth world called for retaliation in unison. For every person calling for diplomacy or peaceful talks, there were a thousand ready to pounce. In the paranoia, the more conservative factions of the United Nations called for identifying and tagging numerically every earth citizen. Those opposed were soon threatened and strong-armed into conceding. The vote was unanimous. The operation took a few years. Soon, everyone had a number and everyone was forcibly “tagged” with a smart chip that reported geo-coordinates, bio- and behaviometrics.
The boy input the number and pushed ENTER. The projection went gray for a few seconds before the mask vibrated and glowed green.
The mother dragged her finger across the headlines looking for a story that could occupy her for the few moments she had before tending to dinner. So many useless stories. She could remember how entertainment use to be. True performers and masters of the craft. Now, all that infiltrated news was sex tapes of unknown stars, drug addiction, failed marriages, and rumors of sex tapes. There at least used to be some class. Her eyes flitted through the rest of the section before she let out a sigh, setting the screen down once again on the table and embarking on dinner.
She failed to catch the headline staring right back at her.
Rights Bought for Boy and Notorious Mask
London– Rights have been bought to the story concerning a teenager sentenced
to 8 years in prison for hacking a Vulcan Mind Meld Mask and terrorizing his
enemies, some to the point of hospitalization.
New York Times, July 2, 2046.
The boy placed his fingers on the mask as directed, and closed his eyes. A sensation shot through his body, unfamiliar and invasive. It took him a couple of seconds to adjust and to remember to “think of a place.” He was afraid he could not remember, could not focus. But he did. He could not forget the place where his father said goodbye.
And here he was: not a beach or some enchanted forest. It was right outside, in front of this house he was raised for eleven years, five of them before the ozone went away, when he and his father played outside on the lawn. This house, this lawn. Where his father knelt beside him and said goodbye.
He looked around and did not see his father. A part of him knew that something like this was too good to be true. Seeing him and playing with him even though he was light years away. The day was right. The location was right. The toy worked to this extent. Then a shuffle. The ground seemed unsteady and hollow. He looked down to see his father beneath him, smiling up.
“Are you going to stay on me forever?” the father asked.
“Yes,” the boy said.
