︎
PROTOCOL 01
彼岸花 · PROTOCOL 01
PROTOCOL 01
Every dinner at my family’s table ends the same way. The plates are cleared, the conversation has looped twice, everyone is tired, and still nobody stands up. We all know it is over. Nobody wants to be the one to say so.
There is always a vase in the middle of the table. It just sits there. I started wondering what would happen if it didn’t.
A growing collection of machines for social situations nobody wants to manage.
Every meeting and every dinner has a moment when it is quietly over. So I build instruments that give the unspoken agreement a body, and let the object be the one to say something. If we all agreed to the rule, who is allowed to enforce it?
It starts as a clock. Then it becomes a problem.
speculative instrument · interaction / product / behavioural design
01The observation

Knowing the time was never the problem.

Everyone knows when the meeting ends. Nobody wants to be the person who ends it.

02The invisible rule

A contract nobody signs and nobody keeps.

A meeting is a small agreement. We make it without saying so, then quietly break it.

AGREEMENT→TIME→BEHAVIOUR→CONSEQUENCE
03The question

What if the agreement had a body?

Not a reminder. Not an alarm. A presence in the room that gets harder to ignore the longer the agreement stays broken.

By now you are thinking this is an egg timer with ideas above its station.
You are right. The difference is that nobody has ever been embarrassed by an egg timer.
04The system

How a rule becomes a thing in the room.

You set the terms in a browser. The system turns them into presence. TouchDesigner grows it. A projector puts it on the vase. A servo makes the vase move.

The rule starts as software. It ends up taking up space.

Three layers: the protocol sets the rule, the body (grown in TouchDesigner) performs it, the room takes the consequence.

Signal chain
01
You
set the terms
INPUT
↓type the intent
02
Web console
the PROTOCOL screen
INTERFACE
↓WebSocket / OSC
03
Timer + phases
turns terms into presence
LOGIC
↓presence
04
TouchDesigner
grows it, maps it to the object
ENGINE
the signal splits
↓video
05
Projector
light on the vase
OUTPUT
↓serial
05
ESP32
microcontroller
DRIVER
↓PWM
06
Servo
movement
MOTION
↓light and motion meet on the object
07
The vase
grows, leans, and blooms
OBJECT
05The body

Three bodies. One problem.

The same lateness, read three ways. Grow it. Document it. Block the room.

Botanical control through growth
It grows. It asks where it can grow, then does, until the room is colonised by its own inability to end.
Bureaucratic control through administration
It files paperwork on you. Notice, reminder, second notice, form 01-B, escalation, case opened.
Architectural control through obstruction
It starts taking your chair. It asks what space is left, then takes it, until the meeting cannot continue.
06The behaviour

The flat line before the break is the whole design.

For the promised time, and a little grace, it does almost nothing. Then it moves. How fast depends on how many people are waiting: two of you barely registers, a full room turns five minutes into a thicket.

0153045607545:00it takes the roompresenceminutes at the table

The waiting is the joke, and the threat. Anticipation does the work.

CONTRACT
we agreed
GRACE
it's fine
CONCERN
someone noticed
INTERVENTION
say something
VIOLATION
you said 45 minutes
I did not set out to build something menacing. I set out to avoid an awkward conversation. It turns out those are closer together than I thought.
◆the instrument · configure one yourself

Program a meeting, then watch it refuse to end.

Set the promise, the tolerance, the number of witnesses, the body and the awareness. Then seal the agreement and let the clock run.

PROTOCOL · 01configuration

Make the meeting end on time.

the question it raises
If nobody stops the meeting, is the meeting still consensual?
meeting
promise · 45 min
the length everyone agreed to
witnesses · 8
more witnesses, less patience
tolerance · 5 min
the overrun you will forgive
body
control through growth. it asks where it can grow.
awareness
it knows it is in the room, and it has opinions.

Try the bureaucratic body. It files paperwork on you.

07The voice

It stays polite far longer than the situation warrants.

Give it the self-aware body and it talks.

00:00“Good morning.”
44:59“Everything is going according to plan.”
45:01“Noted.”
+03“No rush.”
+08“Would anyone like to wrap up?”
+11“I think we are close.”
+14“You said 45 minutes.”
+18“I have made a note of this.”
+23“I am going to intervene.”
“I have decided.”
08Awareness

Who knows?

Consent: everyone knows. Host: you know. Secret: nobody knows. Self-aware: it knows.

09The ethics

Making a rule visible, or making it unavoidable.

It starts as a productivity object and quietly turns into a question about control.

When does assistance become coercion?

I don’t know. That’s partly why I built it.

10Decisions

Some decisions were harder than others.

What drives it
consideredA four-way formula: overrun times people times mood times tolerance.
choseOne presence curve, bent by how many people are waiting.
whyThe formula was unstable and needed a mood input I never had. The curve keeps the intent and stays tunable.
Temperament
consideredA slider that made it more dramatic.
choseNo slider.
whyDrama you can dial is decoration. How intense it gets should come from how late it is and how many people are stuck there.
The bodies
consideredThree visual styles.
choseThree theories of control.
whyGrowth, administration, obstruction. Three looks is decoration; three arguments is a project.
The body
consideredA pretty animation that grows with the clock.
choseA system that tries to occupy the room, grown in TouchDesigner.
whyTime should not set size, it should raise the odds of behaviour. This prototype is the brain. The body gets grown for real.
The projection
consideredA hologram floating in mid-air.
choseProjection mapped onto a real object.
whyAchievable, and prettier. The object stays literal while the metaphor grows on its skin.
Time
consideredMaking you wait 45 minutes to see anything.
choseA compressed preview, with a real-time setting for the patient.
whyThe installation runs in real time. The portfolio does not.
The look
consideredBright and cheerful.
choseDeep burgundy, bone, one scarlet, painted not printed.
whyCheerful fought the idea. The flower set the register: a little funereal. And a serif makes 'I have decided' a whisper, not a punchline.
The flower
consideredA generic growing thing.
choseA red spider lily, the higanbana.
whyA flower for thresholds, endings, and final goodbyes. It seemed appropriate. You know.
11Volume 01

The physics of social norms.

The meeting is the first instrument, not the only one. The dinner guest who overstays, the queue that stalls, the person who will not stop talking. Each one gets a body.

Roadmap: surveillance, politeness, embarrassment, authority. Machines for enforcing the little rules we pretend aren't rules.

PROTOCOL
Objects for the things we don't know how to say.