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The Prix Ars Electronica Archive is a collection enabling search and viewing of all the submissions since 1987. The award-winning projects are documented with catalogue texts and audio-visual media. All other submissions can be searched by title/artist and displayed with year, category in list form. Please cite the credits (artwork name, artist and photographer) and only use the materials if your article is related to Ars Electronica.
Safe Cuddling
Helge Fischer
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Seventy-seven percent of people in the UK think the world has become more frightening in the last ten years, though people in the Western world arguably live in the safest environment ever experienced. Epidemics, crises, plagues, terror, syndromes, traumas: our cultural environment fuels fear and alters the way we experience and manage it at a societal level.
Exploring this “culture of fear”, we can see how it furthers feelings of vulnerability, mistrust and isolation, how it substantially alters the ways in which we relate to one another, to ourselves, and to our children.
The _Safe Cuddling_ suit permits the innocent cuddling of children by helping adults to maintain their integrity. When the child wearing the suit is touched for too long or in inappropriate areas an alarm goes off, first gently hinting at potential ambiguities, finally assertively reminding the parent or carer and others around of their responsibility.
When I showed the design proposal to parents, child minders and a child protection professional, what was originally intended as an ironic comment became a lot more complex. The suit acted as a tool to spark debate about rational and irrational fears, about risks, technology, the media and attitudes within society towards children's safety.
Does our desire to eliminate uncertainties and avoid risk lead us to become even more fearful? Can humor be an appropriate tool for challenging dark and uncomfortable social issues?
Links: http://www.hfischer.info/safecuddling.html
Exploring this “culture of fear”, we can see how it furthers feelings of vulnerability, mistrust and isolation, how it substantially alters the ways in which we relate to one another, to ourselves, and to our children.
The _Safe Cuddling_ suit permits the innocent cuddling of children by helping adults to maintain their integrity. When the child wearing the suit is touched for too long or in inappropriate areas an alarm goes off, first gently hinting at potential ambiguities, finally assertively reminding the parent or carer and others around of their responsibility.
When I showed the design proposal to parents, child minders and a child protection professional, what was originally intended as an ironic comment became a lot more complex. The suit acted as a tool to spark debate about rational and irrational fears, about risks, technology, the media and attitudes within society towards children's safety.
Does our desire to eliminate uncertainties and avoid risk lead us to become even more fearful? Can humor be an appropriate tool for challenging dark and uncomfortable social issues?
Links: http://www.hfischer.info/safecuddling.html
Photographs: Ann-Kristina Simon (DE, www.duk-duk.com). Interviews: Charlotte Jarvis (UK). Thanks to Milan Metthey, James Auger, John Thomson.
Supported by the Royal College of Art, Design Interactions Department
Supported by the Royal College of Art, Design Interactions Department
Helge Fischer (DE) is a Berlin-based interaction designer working as a research fellow at the FHP Interaction Design Research Lab (IDL) and as a freelance designer. In summer 2010 he graduated from the Royal College of Art, London, with a MA in Design Interactions and holds a BA in Digital Media Design from the University of the Arts, Bremen.