Khanh Build(Fest) Reflection: Book Hunt
“If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war”
In this dystopian future, the government has ordered the burning of all materials that are deemed dangerous. You are a soldier who has been tasked with searching for these books and destroying them. Will you save the books? Or will you burn them?
With the focus of this year’s Social Impact BuildFest being on Book Banning, I wanted to create an immersive story experience that could convey the gravity of this issue. Using haptics from Datafeel to generate heat from the fire and the discomfort in the environment of aggressive fear-mongering similar to those from politicians in real life to juxtapose the calmness of liberation and relief when one reads these books, which are safe spaces and representations of diverse minority voices.
Our team incorporated the Datafeel Dots as a tool to help soldiers navigate these books; the further away they are to the banned books, the more intense the haptics, and the closer they are to the book, the less intense the sensations until the sensation shuts off when they pick up and read the book allowing full focus in the material. To make this a reality, we used an ultrasonic sensor to trigger the different levels of intensity to the dots accompanied with a wireless bone conduction headset to so the audio to illustrate the narrative. Thus, I was able to create an original soundscape that would weave throughout the interaction: The Government propaganda, the rebel interception, the good and bad ending. After choosing to safe the book and add it to a community free little library the users take with them a book (zine) of resources that offer real world actionable items that our team as collected: Library bill trackers in Texas, Banned Books lists, petitions and Guides on how to contact policymakers and join school board meetings etc.
Despite not placing high, I was incredibly proud of our team creations as we successfully created what we set out to do: To build not just a product but an immersive experience that merges art and technology that evokes emotions, allowing people to feel while raising awareness and advocating for a societal issue.