VIDEO DESCRIPTION:

Play, download and edit the free video Plunge-it!.

The idea behind Plunge-it! was to recycle an object by adding functionalities that are not part of the original intentions of the object’s designer. Also, I wanted to develop a system such that the visible aspect of said object wasn’t affected by the new functionalities, therefore to embrace the definition of “deceptive” quoted at the top of the paragraph. The object that I chose to use is a sink plunger, a common tool in every house and with a very specific purpose which requires the object to be used in a specific way. A user looking at the plunger would immediately recognise the object and its function for its familiarity and wouldn’t suspect or expect it to actually serve a different purpose (naturally, this differs when considering the context in which a user can interact with it. For instance, being the object displayed at an event such as CruftFest, it is expected for it to be more than “just a plunger”).
The first impression is therefore that one of a normal object which we are familiar with but it’s when we try to interact with it that the ambiguous and illusory aspect comes in. The object in fact becomes something else, a different version of a plunger (an “enhanced plunger”), and not in an expected way. The object shows its “hidden” characteristic that is, to be a multimedia controller to generate visuals and sounds according to its movement, resembling that one of a game joystick. When the user interacts with it, the object assumes a completely different meaning and purpose, although its exterior looks exactly the same as before. In fact, the plunger is still a fully working plunger, none of the initial meaning was taken from the object while an additional one was added on top of it. With Plunge-it!, one could ideally plunge a sink and generating sounds and visuals at the same time.
Another aspect that lead me to the development of this project is the fact that usually when talking about “deceptive technologies” we mostly refer to software applications, intangible technologies (social networks and virtual communities have being subject of study since their beginning [2]) because they can be intuitively more deceptive than a concrete physical object. The recent phenomenon “Post-Truth” can be easily linked to this as often technology is considered to be responsible in the growing of deceptive ideas. In extremis, “being caught out in a lie doesn’t matter and it becomes instead proof of a weird kind of authenticity” [3]. With Plunge-it I wanted to do the opposite, so to produce a real physical object that uses technology to become deceptive, and not necessarily in a negative way.

Download, play and edit free videos and free audios from Plunge-it! using RedcoolMedia.net web apps