'Tic' and 'tac' are two pieces of furniture, ideal
for tea and coffee fika breaks. Taking a comfortable seat on ‘tic’
and setting your hot cup on the attached table activates patterns hidden
in the table’s textile surface. These patterns – your 'x'
or 'o' mark – are communicated to the textile surface in 'tac'.
By intention or accident, you can discover and invite another into an
aesthetic and subtle game of 'tic-tac-toe' that lasts just as long as
your coffee stays hot.
'Tic tac textiles' is a waiting game – for playful communication
through the textile patterns of everyday objects. Communications technologies
are often considered as time saving tools that help us perform a certain
task faster or more efficiently. Besides saving time, they also create
waiting time – waiting for connection, waiting to start, on hold,
waiting... This project explores one possible aesthetic experience of
idle time through subtle, tangible interaction with technology embedded
in everyday rituals and things.
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| 'tic' | to 'tack' | 'tic-tac-toe' |
Pre-study: Wait
The project began with small ethnographic studies of waiting. Observations
of the behaviors that emerge in everyday 'in-between' or 'down-times'
revealed patterns of actions, unconscious or playful activities that
animated waiting spaces such as street corners, ATM queues and bus stops.
Johan Thoresson
Link to pre-study website
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| Observation - shopping | Observation - mouse play | Observation- bus stop |
Pre-study: Textile
play
Exploring these qualities in the design of computational things for
everyday life, we experimented with dynamic, subtle patterns that could
be designed through smart textile materials. In ‘tic tac textiles’,
another layer of meaning woven into the fabric can emerge through playful
or accidental interactions. Networked tic-tac-toe acts as an invitation,
a familiar game to spark discovery and slow play with patterns of communication.
Linda Worbin
Link to pre-study
website
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Tic tac textile
prototype
In the ‘tic’ and ‘tac’ furniture objects, woven
thermochromic fabric covers the attached table. Underneath are heating
elements – when a hot object is placed on top, the elements heat
up to form an ‘x’ or ‘o’ mark in the fabric of both
the furniture. Players seated on ‘tic’ and ‘tac’
mark their own and the other’s tables by moving their cups and
waiting for patterns to emerge and be exchanged.
In ‘tic tac textiles’, everyday furniture becomes a setting
for a new kind of communication, a waiting game played through tangibly
interacting with others through the dynamic textile surfaces of everyday
objects. Subtle, slow, and waiting patterns transform the habitual fika
into an aesthetic and playful ritual.
Download
Case Study (A4 PDF)
Tic Tac Textiles team
Anders Ernevi, Daniel Eriksson, Margot Jacobs, Ulrika Löfgren, Ramia
Mazé, Johan Redström, Johan Thoresson, Linda Worbin