Social interaction | research | concept | presentation…and how it evolved…

I started off this project by wanting to do a sort of public intervention and/or social intervention. I was really intrigued by the state of the toilets at parsons . So I started asking all the students what they thought was the problem in the toilets. And their answer was that most of the times they were gross because people wouldn’t flush the toilet. Indeed , that was a huge issue , not only at parsons but in all public toilets in the world! People just don’t flush . So in my project I wanted to figure a way to incite people to flush. Plus I thought that working with the interaction of “flushing” was interesting. Somehow , integrate the handle in the toilets.

I also thought wanted to integrate smell . I researched about this smelly robot called olly molly(http://ollyfactory.com/). And just loved what they do. I thought that it can fit perfectly in my idea. Because smell is a very important factor in the toilets. Bad smell and good smell.

I didn’t really peruse this idea because I thought it was too hostile or just too extreme but brainstorming about all these possibilities inspired me so much to peruse the rest of the project.

So basically my concept was the following: Connecting big cities in the world into being cleaner and more sanitary, it’s a way of making people aware of the culture of other cities as well as commonalities and at the same time a game or competition between them.

So Every time a user flushes the toilet a good smell is sent to someone else using the toilet in another city the other person receives a notification on a screen and a smell is produced.

So then I thought why make it international when you can just connect two people in the same city and even in the same toilet. One flushes and the other person in the other toilet receives the smell and a message.

Here is the presentation I made: social interaction

This first idea made me think of something else that was more subtle. What if I create this box that can send a smell to your loved one in order for them to remember you or think of you or even telling them that you are thinking of them. What if you were in a long distance relationship and you can send the smell of your perfume to your partner?

So at this stage , I researched a lot on perfumes, memories and smell . And I found all these articles that explain so well the relationship between the three.

There was a workshop done at Parsons a couple of years ago on smell and design. It really explains this idea very well (http://transdesign.parsons.edu/?p=295)

Also I found this place in Brooklyn called CB I HATE PERFUME, where you can create a customized perfume . And each fragrance of perfume is related to an event in your life or a memory of something or someone. http://www.cbihateperfume.com/

So here is an initial sketch I made for this concept:

The idea was to create a box divided in two triangle where you can place a paper ( that would be sprayed with perfume) . You would give the box with your smell to your partner and your partner would do the same. Then you would press on a button to send your smell. This hole process would happen via twitter.