Does a chair have personality?
Indeed!
How can we be sure that our furniture does not feel, similar to ourselves?
Let's assume our furniture would consequently try to communicate with us. It would try to express its anger, delight, affection, boredom or similar feelings. We could neither hear nor see or feel it!
Our doors of perception however depend on the few senses available to us.
Exactly like for a chair.

What if the chair could talk to us?

The talkingchair is an experimental revision of the fabulous design classic Tom Rock (Tom Vac) that was originally designed by Ron Arad in 1999.
Using a some electronics a vivid, interactive personality is added to the originally quiet chair. The object gains an augmented, digitally generated character.

Per vvvv the chair is programed to detect physical contact with its user.
From interpreting the sequence and combination of activated buttons the system concludes type of movement done by the user and reacts by giving acoustic output, based on spoken sounds. With this equipment the chair able to interactively communicate different moods to its user, what leads to a very special sitting-experience.

poor image-quality video. sound!

the moodwatch-pannel displays the current moods of the chair.

You'll find a funny concept-movie (ca. 5min) about interactive objects HERE.
Please install the shockwave plugin on your system before viewing.

big thanks to computer-wizard tompeak who made this possible!

www.talkingchair.net