Outcome

Intention

This project intends to explore ways in which people deal with share digital memories (photos) after traumatic events, e.g. falling out with a best friend, significant other, family member, etc. We create a fictional world where partial deletion processes are available to everyone, where instead of destroying/deleting all parts of a memory, people can keep the overall experience by removing only a portion (an undesirable person, for example) from it. We explore the plausibility of this fictional deleting ritual by considering scenarios in which people misuse the technology, creating unexpected social effects. 

This ritual for partial removal is to be conducted through a series of design objects: a specialized printer prints out a copy of the photo on sensor embedded paper, and a disk connected to the digital interface to scratch out the undesirable person. Once a person is physically scratched from the photo, he/she will disappear from the original digital copy as well.

The project ultimately deals with the question of whether it's appropriate to erase yourself or someone else out of a group memory; especially when that memory is digital and public. Other considerations include how an altered memory affect the collective memory online, whether a deletion ritual should be private, and what rights people ought to have in this process. 

Precedents

There are actually many apps on the market that allows for the removal of unwanted items from photos. One such app is called TouchRetouch. It is as simple as circling out the unwanted item and the program will automatically get rid of it and fill in the void seamlessly with the background.

http://adva-soft.com/products/touch-retouch/

Another thing is that people typically have strong negative emotions coming out of a broken relationship, regardless of whether it is romantic. People have different ways of dealing with those emotions but many do find it satisfying to let out emotions such as anger or frustration in a physical way like ripping up photos, throwing away related items, etc. There is actually this relatively new therapy method called Destructotherapy, which involves patients letting out their anger through destroying physical things in a safe environment. This type of therapy was founded in 2003 and first became popular in Spain [1]. And over the years this trend caught traction here in the United States. This resulted in 'Rage Rooms' to open across the country. People pay to spend time in this room to smash up things [2].

Process

In making the dystopian world, considerations were raised regarding our current way of viewing digital records and deletion process. The fictional world was initially meant to envision future options for  deletion, but through observations about the current way 

Prototype

To achieve scratching a person off without leaving an empty space, we printed the original photo on sheets of scratch off stickers, and Photoshop-generated a picture of just the background, printed on regular paper. By overlaying the two materials, we achieved the effect of scratching a person off to reveal the background, as if the person was never there. This worked pretty well: other than some color difference at the scratched area, the person could essentially be "scratched out" of a photo.

With that in mind, we considered using pressure sensors for translating to the digital space in the working prototype. Each person in the photo would have a pressure sensor behind the picture. When pressure is applied/the physical photo is scratched, the screen would reveal the photo without the person corresponding with the pressure sensor being activated. We briefly tested some pressure sensors with some sample code, and discovered that it's difficult to accurately simulate onscreen the process of scratching, since the code merely switches between the scratched photo and the original when the sensor is triggered. This idea was quickly abandoned, since creating realistic representations of the scratching experience using pressure sensors was time-consuming and its complexity exceeds the timeline of this project.

To more realistically produce the experience, we used a Wacom tablet and Photoshop layer masks to "scratch" off the person. A physical photo printed on scratch off material was affixed to a mapped area on the Wacom tablet, using blue as the designated design object color, while the computer screen is masked with a blue frame to echo the physical copy and to create a more immersive experience, hiding out the Photoshop user interface.

Since the coin object in our video presentation could not interact with a Wacom tablet, we had to adapt the tablet pen as our scratching device in the working prototype. To allow the Wacom tablet pen to scratch off material from the physical copy, we had to make a larger nib for the tablet pen. This was initially envisioned as a 3D printed part with one chiseled edge, due to equipment technical difficulties and availability, the end product was hand carved out of 1/16'' round basswood rods. 

The nib is created by shaving off layers using a round carving knife, comparing to the original nib, and cut down for size. There were several options for attaching the larger tip, glued-on, gradual change in diameter, and carving from the same piece of wood.

After first testing the functionality of a wooden nib in the tablet pen, we made several iterations of the wooden nib. Problems that arose in this stage includes getting the pen to grip the nib, but without constantly triggering its pressure sensor. Nibs of a slightly too small diameter ended up falling out from the pen, and nibs of a slightly too large diameter jammed the pressure sensor on the pen, making the tablet constantly receive the "click"/"draw" signal. After a few tests, we ended up with a wooden nib with a round chisel tip, carved from one piece of dowel rod, since tests showed that glued chisel tips are not reliable when the pressure needed to scratch is applied.

Combining these different elements of design objects, we were able to have an interactive scratching interface where the digital copy reflects the changes being made on the physical copy.

Final Product

The final product is a series of objects highlighted in blue, that helps explain the common practice of partial deletion in the fictional world we've created. Together they convey a system that allows the users to partially delete/modify digital memories through the physical act of scratching. 

Open Questions and Challenges

The idea that the digital record of these memories could be altered raises questions about its contribution to collective memories. A digital record often serves as the authority of truth, what happens when that digital record is no longer reliable? We hope that this product transforms the permanent nature of digital records into a transient device of memory, exploring the pros and cons that comes with the universal ability to change the perception of history. 

The very extreme situation we briefly talked about is when this ritual is used for criminals. Another extreme scenario that one of the class students brought out was having a graduation album, which later turns out to be full of empty pictures of graduated students.

The reason why this extremely dystopian situation has surfaced is probably because there will be always dichotomous options for users, either 'someone completely not being there' or 'being there'. And relevant questions that we got during the presentation were being able to get rid of something semi-permanently and thus slowering the deletion process. This could be our future explorations. For technical portion, we can have opacity function for the deletion: people will have to scratch layers of pictures until complete deletion. We think this will bring a totally different mindset to people for their ritual of partial deletion. People will realize that the ritual requires them to make a lot of efforts for deleting someone, which will also allow people to carefully think about the digital artifacts they are creating and people in the pictures and to be reflective of its consequences.

Reflection

Although we had a rough start, we are happy with the overall result of this project. Reflecting back, we were having so much trouble with the conceptualization of this investigation because we were thinking too broadly. When we finally tried to start with something specific, like what happens when a couple breakup, the concept came to us very quickly. This is a lesson well learned. In the future, when there seems to be a lack of ideas, it is important to take a step back and try to approach the problem from another angle. 

It was also amazing to see how time crunch can push us to finish a video project in just a few days. Previously, whenever we needed to product concept videos, it is generally for long term projects at the end of the semester: with a lot more time and planning involved. This project tested us in how to plan, execute, edit, and present a project in five days. 

Attribution and References

[1] https://luxury.rehabs.com/therapy-and-counseling/destructotherapy/

[2] https://interestingengineering.com/these-rage-rooms-allow-stressed-out-guests-to-smash-away-their-anger