Escaping Chair: Furniture-Shaped Device Art

A furniture-device is a device having the furniture appearance and physical input and output functions. The Escaping Chair is a furniture-device capable of having physical and dynamic interaction with a subject to create self-awareness toward the intent of their actions and personification of the furniture-device. The chair interacts with bystanders by trying to move away from nearby people. By fleeing this, the device tries to make a person unable to sit on it, stimulating their perception toward their sitting action, while also making the person consider the Chair's "personality." We exhibited the chair and collected feedback via conversation and observation. During exhibition the exhibit, the chair succeeded in making subjects perceive their own movements and to feel a semblance of will in the chair during their interactions, as we planned, and even making them sympathize with it. Exhibition also raised further challenges to explore in user interaction.