Introduction

"surprise" is an element (which could be an object, a person, atmosphere etc.) which has never or rarely come across you. An element which has never or rarely experienced in your daily routine. For example, you open the door and there is a wall instead of room. It automatically becomes a "surprise". You get up in the morning and you see yourself in another planet, that becomes "surprise." It is "feeling of shock due to something unexpected."

Abstract
Milan is a place which attracts people from all over the world.A huge amount of foreigners come Milano every year.In places like doumo square, castello, metro stations, centrale station etc is possible to observe force of these people.Focusing on that space we tried to use everyday life objects such as urban furniture located in that space. We wanted to use the flow of different communities at this place and improve some functionalites of everyday life objects without exceeding technological issues.

Design Objective

The objective was to use everyday life object (like dustbin, parking, pole, stairs etc) of public spaces with which people daily interact. The main goal of the project is to use the flow of different communities permanently staying at public spaces and people from different countries.Public spaces are the hub of students, workers, employees, people from different communities.We wanted to develop a system at public spaces such as central station ("centrale" at Milano) which would attract people to interact with them.

After many days of brain storming we came up some keywords.

• cultural jamming
• urban objects detournement
• stereo types
• playfulness
• transitional spaces
• social conversation
• globalism
  

Project discription
After getting idea of content and context we came up with three projects.
1. Narcissus Fountain
2. Rubabanderia, colonial flags
3. Babelizer.

1. Narcissus Fountain

Narcissus means reflection.Location-central station square.Target- people passing by central station square (like employees, precarious workers, waiters, students etc), tourists, people who always stay there (like homeless, pushers).

This is an image of a fountain which includes water proof mirror in the center, video camera and light sensor on the top and a water tap.People are mirrored when they look at mirror.Approaching to the water his image blurs and appears another one of the former drinker which is randomly extracted.As he sees image of another person while drinking water, surprise comes automatically from the reaction of artifact.

This was the first project of "surprise".

2. Rubabanderia, colonial flags
Flags represent different nationality, symbol of national pride and national identity, which becomes stronger when living in foreign countries. The main purpose was using provocative attitude of people. This project is placed at central station square in Piazza Duca d'Acosta.

A simple support of plasma is placed on the top. With the help of normal switcher flags can be decided from the list of countries (as shown in the image where the hand is placed). So people can come at select their country.

Person is invited to record a 10 second video message. Every 2 minutes appears the message recorded by the person. After a 30 minutes of inactivity the flag automatically becomes Italian. Everybody tries to change flag according to their nationality and sometimes it results in provocation.

3. Babelizer

This is the third project on theme "surprise". Babelizer is also placed at central station of Milano and it is specifically located between two escalators. Sculpture of two large ears with recorders are placed between two escalators for the people going to railways station and coming out from railways station. This sculpture attracts people to interact with it and attract them to say something in it.

When single speech volume exceeds the normal volume of surrounding environment, artifact automatically records the voice.Output speakers are placed below sewer drain in Piazza Duca d'Aosta. People passing by Piazza Duca d'Aosta will hear the recorded voice through the speakers, which will become surprise for them as at very first moment they will not be able to recognize where the voice is coming from. As a hub of different communities, there will be outcome of different languages. The words are randomly extracted from the database and mixed in original sequences (Chinese, Italian, Indian, English etc.) as mock up of international globalize language.

other projects

1. Language, Literacy and Mobile UI - Nokia
2 surprise-interaction design lab
3. giftin-mobile application-icon media lab
4. camima-robotically yours
5. come fly with us-retail therapy
6. two halves
7. hacking keyboards
8. annoyer-interactive toys