Thinking Physically: FaceSpace

Andrew Styer and I worked together to develop FaceSpace – a device which indicates the amount of space in front of the wearer in terms of Proxemic distance. It’s designed to be somewhat impractical, nearly completely obscuring your view and forcing reliance on the dial’s reading while walking around a space.

Proxemic space is generally categorized into four broad areas: Intimate, Personal, Social and Public. In our class Thinking Physically we measured out the various distances with a string to see exactly what these categories feel like. One thing we discovered is that the space in front of us had a much more profound impact on our perception personal distance than other directions.

With that in mind Andy and I came up with the idea to explicitly depict proxemic space in a device like a compass. We thought that it would be interesting to know the various categories as you moved around familiar spaces. While that was neat, it was too much of a utility to be fun. Andy’s big push was to put it on a helmet and I felt it would cross over to ridiculousness if it blocked your vision.

So, FaceSpace…showing you the space in front of your face. Enjoy.