ABSTRACTZenchronous “禅調” is a personal and shared space for honest and ephemeral messages. Users are able to interact with each other by drawing with the rake and placing rocks to show remote presence. Instead of focusing on increasing the speed and quantity of information delivered to the recipient as done with our current communication improvements. We focus on delivering the emotions and gestures with a broad scope of visual representations i.e. drawings, symbols and text, thereby recovering the nuances that are lost with texting and emailing. The zen garden affords us to deliver messages with gestures of face-to-face communication: drawing accents and subtle meanings from the speed and depth of strokes, thereby embodying the users’ intent and thoughtfulness towards the receiver. Zenchronous invites people to step away from more hectic digital communication into an inherently more focused and relaxed medium.Our concept borrows from the zen garden, which is to create the sense of water without its physical presence. We create a deep sense of connectedness even when one cannot physically be there for his/her loved one. The synchronicity and reflectiveness are at the core of our interaction. We propose three ways of interacting with each other:
Ghostly presence: Drawings performed with the rake are mirrored on the other end augmenting the presence of the other.
Connected presence: A rock placed on one garden produces a corresponding ripple on the other one at the same location. This is how people get in contact in real-time, and subtly say “I am here”.
Interpersonal communication: We can chose our recipient by touching a specific rock. The drawings made afterwards will only show on their garden. This interaction allows intimacy.
Ishii, Hiroshi, Minoru Kobayashi, and Jonathan Grudin. “Integration of Interpersonal Space and Shared Workspace: Clearboard Design and Experiments.” Acm Transactions on Information Systems. 11.4 (1993): 349-375.
Yuta Sugiura, Koki Toda, Takayuki Hoshi, Youichi Kamiyama, Takeo Igarashi and Masahiko Inami. “Graffiti Fur: Turning Your Carpet into a Computer Display.” In Proc. UIST’14 (2014): 149-156.
Koji Tsukada, Taketo Ohwada, Sakura Toyabe and Michiaki Yasumura. “Citizen’s Chime Project: The Augmented Garden”. Shinseiki Media Art Festival. 2001.
Ishii, Hiroshi, Minoru Kobayashi, and Jonathan Grudin. “Integration of Interpersonal Space and Shared Workspace: Clearboard Design and Experiments.” Acm Transactions on Information Systems. 11.4 (1993): 349-375.
Yuta Sugiura, Koki Toda, Takayuki Hoshi, Youichi Kamiyama, Takeo Igarashi and Masahiko Inami. “Graffiti Fur: Turning Your Carpet into a Computer Display.” In Proc. UIST’14 (2014): 149-156.
Koji Tsukada, Taketo Ohwada, Sakura Toyabe and Michiaki Yasumura. “Citizen’s Chime Project: The Augmented Garden”. Shinseiki Media Art Festival. 2001.