Phone Mobile - Student Project | RCA

A physical computing prototype that is part kinetic light sculpture, part audio information space that lets people construct and interact with their own phone system with unique poetic interactions.

Physical computing

PhoneMobiles are physical interactive construction kits for making personal audio information spaces for mobile phones. They allow people to design and construct their own mobile phone systems by moving and storing audio messages. The physical representations of these audio information spaces let people build the structures they want for themselves. When people have the ability to manipulate components of their own systems, they become creators, not just consumers of their technologies. By constructing their own systems, they become inherently more understandable, flexible, useful and navigable.

Built fully working prototype out of wood, brass, flocked acrylic tubes, electronics and code for Royal College of Art Degree show (2000).

Audio Blackboard

A PhoneMobile can be viewed at different levels. At the first level, it is an audio blackboard where one can create and listen to audio notes created for oneself, such as shopping lists or reminders.

Answering Machine

At the next level, it is a sophisticated answering machine allowing one to organise, sort and store voice messages from other people into different reeds.

Subscription Services

At a third level, it can be thought of as service management device that allows one to add services. To subscribe to new services, one simply calls up the service, which then takes one’s phone number via caller ID, and sends that service out as a new voice mail. One can then place this new voice mail on any of the reeds on the phoneMobile. This becomes the physical representation of that service. For example, a message from the weather forecast service. This service would renew itself automatically daily.

Access on the go

The mobile phone user could access any of the reed messages by phoning up the system and retrieving its messages or services.

Network of Appliances

The final level on which to think about the phoneMobile is as a networked appliance. Any one of the reeds could be associated with another appliance. So, for example, a digital radio could be matched to one of the reeds making it play one’s favorite radio station on the phoneMobile and then subsequently on one’s mobile phone.