The inspiration for this project stemmed from the overall habit of technology seeping into every aspect of our lives. We are attached to our screens in an unhealthy fashion and have become out of sync with our natural environment, our bodies and our natural rhythms.
Our concept wanted to flip the narrative of technology and shift the power into nature’s hands. Technology has long been able to dictate the structure of our lives powerfully, so Sufi enables nature to intervene in our algorithms. We emphasise the poetic and meaningful element of using AI to grant our environment more power, helping humans shift back to their natural cycles and reminding them what their evolution was for.
sufi = chrome extension + physical object with camera and speaker
that detects bad posture and lack of break from screens and intervenes accordingly.
Sufi is an embodiment of nature in your technological bubble. An artefact embedded with a camera and speaker that watches you in your internal environment and disrupts your technology to reinforce good habits. Made with natural soft wood, it is designed to blend in as an everyday object.
Built with a camera, the artefact observes your behaviour and responds accordingly. The response is a disruption in your routine through sound and animation via a Chrome plugin. It tracks the location and weather of your area and correspondingly curates the right disruption with nature sounds, visuals and messages.
There are three main states:
Bad posture detection: The artefact will emit a specific sound and animation that will distort your screen.
Continuous work: When the camera detects you working on screens for more than 30 minutes, triggering chirping noises and another animation that prompts the user to go outside.
Pre-sleep intervention: If the user is watching TV or doom scrolling for too long before bed, the artefact will start to play nighttime nature sounds and display an animation of a local animal in your environment that is starting to wind down. It offers to help you get ready for sleep.
This way, the artefact not only enables good habits but also allows the user to be in sync with their bodies and learn more about their local environment.
This project was done as a part of a week long course called Designing with AI at CIID in 2024.
Team members : Eva Barth and Gayatri Kalra.
The brief was to design a physical product that uses artificial intelligence to introduce invisible friction to reinforce positive habits or helping to manage negative ones.
