Shared Ground

Shared Ground is an interactive installation geared towards creating connections amongst strangers through a shared visual experience. The installation uses physical interaction, split amongst three users, to explore a virtual space. The division of control is used to encourage communication in order to navigate a foreign space as one unit, therefore creating a shared experience where each user becomes one third of a whole. This process consisted of research surrounding stranger interaction and the influence of positive shared experience, user feedback about different types of virtual spaces and iterations of virtual spaces influenced by physical inputs.

Shared Ground utilizes several technologies and libraries. The virtual 3D space was created using three.js which is then manipulated using data from the gyroscope in users' phones. This data is passed, using socket.io, through a node.js server which hosted all of the phones and the virtual space shown above.

All acknowledgments for the people behind the libraries I utilized can be found in my code, which you can find here.

I chose to use the user's phone as a means of interacting with the virtual space in order to make the experience more comfortable and personal. Some assumptions I made when making Shared Ground are that most people carry phones with internet access and use them frequently. This gives the user something familiar to use in order to interact with something foreign, thereby creating a sense of comfortability in a new situation.

Above: The prompt users see when they first get on to the phone webpage Below: The gifs shown on users phones that direct them to tilt their phone to interact with the virtual space — Above: The prompt users see when they first get on to the phone webpage
Below: The gifs shown on users phones that direct them to tilt their phone to interact with the virtual space

Shared Ground was put on display at the Tangram show in May of 2016, at Parsons School of Design. This project was a success based on my observations of people interacting with it. It engaged people enough to form small crowds around it at different points during the show and I was able to see at multiple points, people speaking to each other as they interacted with it. From what I saw, the interactions between people were focused on either helping one another understand what to do with their phone or conversation about what each other were doing. For me, this made Shared Ground a success. The feedback I received about the interaction will also serve as valuable information for future iterations but as a first step, with the sole concept being the encouragement of group interaction geared towards creating connections amongst people, it was successful.

If this project were to be continued I would like to update the visuals and make this experience more compelling with more interaction inside of the virtual space. Perhaps a more dynamic virtual landscape and a narrative to engage the users to continue their interaction.