Web Explorations

Kacie Kinzer is interested in humans and how we interact with each other. The TweenBot is a rolling box with a smiley face and a flag giving the robot’s desired destination in the middle of New York City.

Thinking that the robot might be destroyed or ruined due to the hazards of city life it was made disposable. Kacie filmed the results from a discrete distance and it is heart warming to see what happens.

I can’t help but wonder if the tweenBot had been fashioned after the more sinister Transformers. Or, how would people respond if it was otherwise rude and abrasive with flashing lights and was painted with an irritating color combination or loud boom-box noise output. I think it is the happy face that does it and the delightful simplicity of the TweenBot. (There is a lesson in all of this!)

Here’s Kacie’s website describing the TweenBot project.

Mission 1: Get from the Northeast to the Southwest Corner of Washington Square Park / time: 42 minutes / number of people who intervened: 29

Doing a search on Kacie I discovered the Whisper Jar:

One secret captured forever in a jar, until a human comes along to listen to it and then replace it with his or her own secret. The roundness and the white luminescence inside a plain and simple canning jar makes this so magical. I wonder where I can get one for my office?

Kacie has more! She created the There Chair. When Kacie sits on the chair in her apartment in New York City, a light glows in the chair back home at her parent’s house, giving them a sense of presence. This is so totally cool.

So, this isn’t really about if people are good or not, as I first thought when I saw the TweenBot video. Instead I think these designs show us connection, with each other and the technology around us.

Here is Kacie Kinzer’s portfolio if you would like to see some other fascinating designs that touch deep into our sense of being connected as humans.