1 Quest for Fire, Water, Earth and Air An interaction design bus and art installation reflecting climate change concerns through human and elemental connectedness Alettia V. Chisin Johan van Niekerk Mugendi K. M. M’Rithaa Cape Peninsula University of Technology P.O. Box 652, Cape Town 8000 {chisina, vanniekerkj, mugendim}@cput.ac.za ABSTRACT The notion of travelling to open doors onto different perspectives is an antidote to living, working and socializing in spaces mediated by technologically designed artifacts. Interfaces have become ubiquitous and relationships and styles of communication have changed in keeping with this ever-present trend. The Bachelors in Technology design students, from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, have shared their concerns through their design research problems in exactly these areas. Questions regarding water safety, food security, air quality, sewerage management, marginalisation of people with disability, cultural specificity being erased by generic digital content arose; it became clear that the fragile threads connecting the ecosystem to the human system need nurturing. From an internal landscape to an external one, these students apply themselves creatively and intellectually in order to tackle real problems pro- actively; to talk less and do more. To this end, a sizable art installation piece has been conceptualized and constructed which will be unveiled with an accompanying performance piece at the 13th Participatory Design Conference (PDC) in Namibia, in October 2014. Author Keywords Interaction design, participatory design, inter- disciplinarity, art installation, climate change, ecosystems, human connectedness. ACM Classification Keywords H5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): Miscellaneous. INTRODUCTION The interaction design bus is a concept that offers the possibility for new perspectives by removing oneself from a zone of comfort to an unknown zone. Dietrich (2011) refers to liminal spaces as transitional spaces where one is able to suspend preconceived ideas and be open to what the moment has to offer. The interaction design bus represents this transitional space, as it and its approximately 40 occupants make their way from Cape Town to Windhoek; co-creating workshops with communities along the way and participating in events and life moments. The journey will facilitate a documentation of ordinary people’s responses and stories to climate change, during two workshop sessions. Biographical stories collected and/or filmed by students as part of responding to their research in a situated way (Lave & Wenger, 2002) will form a visual connection linking the start of the physical journey to their research journey and the final outcomes. These short vignettes will either be projected onto the art installation and/or embedded as stories on paper on the installation, with an accompanying performance piece during the exhibition. The elements and human sensoria will be connected in the performance piece to offer a crystallization of the interaction design lines engaged with on the journey to Namibia. TIGER FISH INSTALLATION Due to the nature of the project, namely making use of an emergent methodology (Breen, 2005) to be able to work with what is gathered during the workshops and the journey itself, not all the requirements and even outcomes are finalized at this stage of the planning process. What we have finalized are the following: • the brief that we co-developed with the BTech design students speaks of an inter-disciplinary, participatory art installation piece, reflecting connectedness. • the art installation piece will mostly be completed before arrival in Windhoek - only assembly needs to be done and may take some hours to complete. The selected sketches that have been developed in the first phase are included as Figure 1 and Figure 2. The concept of a tiger fish skeleton was decided on, since the students in this group presented a rationale that resonates with issues of climate change, participatory design practices, interconnectedness, and the role of the elements in climate change. The tiger fish (as symbol of power and survival) is found in fresh water, and water safety is under threat. One side of the skeleton represents death/decay and the other side, built up of driftwood and other found materials, represents life and the regenerative capacity of nature and living creatures. The skeleton features a lateral line as a ‘map’ of our journey, as well as providing interactive experiences with the audience. For example, they may try Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. PDC’14, 06-OCT-2014, Windhoek, Namibia. Copyright 2014 ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-2256-0…$10.00.