Projects

Automat

Surveymachine Forum for an Attitude by Depot Basel and Räuber & Stehler 2015

Forum for an Attitude – Forum für eine Haltung (16.10.15 – 14.02.16) was an exhibition of Depot Basel in collaboration with Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, DE. The team of Depot Basel hired the collective "Räuber & Stehler" for the concept and production of a survey station for the exhibition.

The design briefing had one point only: Cater to the topic of the exhibition "Take a stand". We did not want to make another survey station with a screen and keyboard, as often found in public places. So we came to concepts so reduced, that they would definitely not be reminding the user of a survey. Our favourite was a box with two small screens that showed antonyms, with a slider as input inbetween them, to input where someone positions themselves between those two words.

During the development of the exhibition as a whole, the team of Depot Basel had shifting requirements to the Automat. The data the Automat would save, should be able to be representative of what the visitors thought of the contemporary field of design. Depot Basel would later turn this data into infographics similar to the ones hanging in the exbhibition. The Automat was in danger of becoming the screen and keyboard survey pillar. Nonetheless, the goal could be achieved in several ways and the final product was developed together with Depot Basel to the satisfaction of both client and designers. Our position to not include a keyboard had an influence on the way the questions were phrased and in the end made it much easier to use the answers for infographics.

The Automat resembles a Gameboy and is thus easy to use without any explanation. One button confirms the answer, while the second button returns to the start of the questionaire. Visitors "play" with the object, to understand how it works, and are thus already involved before they might notice that they are filling out a survey. Visitors could choose between two or four answers over ten questions total. As a thank you, at they end of the survey the Automat prints a quote from one of the designers showcased in the exhibition. During the four months of the exhibition the Automat collected 3500 answers.

For the Automat we decided – true to the motto of Räuber & Stehler: "We take what we need and give what we can!" – to combine existing components. A Raspberry Pi with a screen and thermoprinter. Code and wiring were taken from an OpenSource project on Adafruit.com. The user interface was written and designed by me. Bevor writing it in the unfamiliar to me programming language Python, I had created a mockup in Processing to discuss it with the team of Depot Basel.

The Automat was also featured in the second exhibition of Forum for an Attitude (Forum Postaw) in Wroclaw, Poland in may 2016.