Hasta La Ideas

A couple months ago, I posted about “Curious Rituals,” a research project by a team of designers at the Art Center College of Design, which I discovered on Hyperallergic. In his post, editor Kyle Chayka also drew a connection to another project concerning touchscreen gestures IRL, “Multi-Touch Gestures” by Gabriele Meldaikyte, who is currently working towards her Master’s in Product Design at RCA.

Where Richard Clarkson’s “Rotary Smartphone” concept incorporated an outdated dialing concept into a contemporary mobile phone, Meldaikyte explores interaction design by effectively inverts this approach to achieve an equally thought-provoking result. The five objects are somehow intuitive and opaque (despite their transparent components) at the same time, transcribing the supposedly ‘natural’ gestures to mechanical media.

There are five multi-touch gestures forming the language we use between our fingers and iPhone screens. This is the way we communicate, navigate and give commands to our iPhones.

Nowadays, finger gestures like tap / scroll / flick / swipe / pinch are considered to be ‘signatures’ of the Apple iPhone. I believe that in ten years or so these gestures will completely change. Therefore, my aim is to perpetuate them so they become accessible for future generations.

I have translated this interface language of communication into 3D objects which mimic every multi-touch gesture. My project is an interactive experience, where visitors can play, learn and be part of the exhibition.

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