aural-visualiser 1000: physical interaction design for materializing moments

Abstract

The aural-visualiser 1000 is a prototype that reorients a user towards understanding the world from an auditory perspective instead of a primarily visual one. By attending to everyday audio instead of vision, the device asks the user to pay attention to the world in a more embodied way. Developed as a means of experimenting with the capacity of physical interaction design to support being present in the world differently, it records audio from everyday life and creates mementos for later reflection and interpretation. The mementos, paper receipts with abstract sound visualizations on them, offer a means of remembering experiences as they were to be there, instead of as they were recorded through image or video.