Towards affective collages of presences

Abstract

This paper describes ongoing work aimed to explore how to augment a person's work environment with information which enables her to feel the presence of intimate companions. The vehicle we deem to be appropriate for this situation is indirect communication (in some ways related to peripheral communication). The presence we intend is based on the activities of these intimate people. In short, with a certain periodicity the user is presented, on a peripheral user interface (windows desktop or digital picture frame), with a new collage composed of pictures indirectly triggered by their loved ones. In particular the pictures are triggered by the text they write and read, and the songs they listen to, while working on their PCs. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.