Jerry-rigged Materials, Household Ephemera
Light Touch is a home build gadget that lets you send an LED pulse to its paired device, which will slowly fade over time (image: Choreo).
“It’s almost like feeding a houseplant,” says Bill Gaver, co-director of the Interaction Research Studio (IRS) at Goldsmiths, University of London. “You want to keep it alive.”
Looking at the studio’s latest project, you understand what Gaver means. There’s something endearing about the flimsy but self-assertive Yo-Yo Machines. One features diminutive LEDs glowing within a jellyfish-like casing atop spindly wooden legs; another, the flick-flack of a cardboard dial giving a friendly wave; a third, a souped-up jam jar with wires spilling promisingly from its lid. Another set of these DIY machines may look entirely different, however, jerry-rigged out of whatever materials and household ephemera lie at hand.
Yo-Yo Machines are lo-fi communication devices, designed to be made by the user at home. Light Touch, for example, lets you send an LED pulse to its paired device, which will slowly fade over time. Select a colour for your device's “send” light, and its sibling device elsewhere switches on a “receive” light in the corresponding colour – perhaps at your grandma’s house or a far-flung friend’s. Speed Dial and Knock Knock have similar functionality but with movement and sound, with instructions to make all three (a fourth is in the works) housed on the Yo-Yo Machines website. Here, the IRS offers directions on how to build the internal hardware; how to set up the firmware; suggestions as to types of casings; and even a shopping list for where to buy components. When creating Yo-Yo Machines, “it’s not only the design of a product, it’s also the design of a recipe that goes with that product,” says Dean Brown, an IRS researcher. “You have to put the same kind of quality into how [the product] is disseminated and presented.”
“It’s not only the design of a product, it’s also the design of a recipe that goes with that product.”
The team see Yo-Yo Machines as a type of “lightweight peripheral communication that's more emotional than information-based,” explains Gaver. “What we miss is not just the experience of talking to people in the room, but the experience of sharing a studio, seeing somebody busy across the way or knowing somebody is in the room next door. It's all that background stuff that isn't recreated very well by Zoom.” Yo-Yo Machines are "reassuring, without being demanding”.
It’s these self-build, lo-fi elements which make Yo-Yo Machines more appealing and personal than slicker, information heavy audio-visual platforms. While the devices are limited to only one form of stimulus each, they’re relatively low cost and accessible. The team estimates that components for a pair should total around £25, and casings can be made from whatever materials you have lying around. Rather than replicate a conversation, Yo Yo Machines are more like a nod, a wave or a wink. Their appeal is that we can reach out and send some basic emotion, continually “going back and forth,” reflects Gaver. “It’s the notion of saying ‘Yo’, ‘Yo!’ to each other.”
Words by Evi Hall
This article was originally published in Disegno #28. To buy the issue, or subscribe to the journal, please visit the online shop.
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