CLTKTY? CLACK! Exploring Design and Interpretation of Sound for Interactive Commodities

Over the last years, a new type of everyday commodities has appeared on the consumer market. These devices are endowed with computing and communication technology, and often networked, becoming a part of the "Internet of Things". Sound offers many benefits for the design of such commodities, in particular because it offers an alternative to the visual display for the increasingly shrinking, even disappearing, computers. These devices also pose a new and exciting challenge for Auditory Display and Sonic Interaction Design, because these objects facilitate new configurations of sound, materiality and interaction, and also will lead to new forms of how interactive, even autonomous, objects become meaningful in a socio-cultural context. In this thesis I set out to explore design approaches and interpretations of sound in interactive commodities. This exploration took place in a participatory, design-driven, sound-centered process, which led to the creation of prototypical instances of possible futures. These were the basis for a dialogical exploration of aesthetic experience and interpretational discourse. To achieve this in sufficient quantity and depth, I devised a series of design workshops as research labs. The design cases were created in the form of "Electroacoustic Wizard-of-Oz" experience mockups, which allowed the production and control of sound in realtime synchronization with the interactions. All projects were demonstrated and discussed with the participants of the respective workshop.