The 9th Digital Art Awards Taipei (Nominated)

The Weight of Numbers
Hsin-Hao Chen
2014, 1’58”
Metal, Electron Device

Raised by my father who has so much passion in collecting all kind of stuff, I have been seeing strange tools and objects such as mechanical clocks, lamps in weird shapes, mechanical calculators ever since I was a child; therefore, I was deeply inspired by the design, the texture and the unique features of these objects.

However, in the past few years, digital products began to gradually replace real objects, such as alarm clock, telephone, maps, books, pen and paper, etc.

The feeling of the material, touch, sense of weight, sound and mechanical feedback will eventually be replaced by digital content which have no physical entities.

People of the future generations will forget the feedback of physical button, the sound of a ticking clock, the feeling of a photo in hand, and the metallic smell after touching cooper, etc. We will lose the interesting experience and unique feeling of these things.

In order to spread my idea, I reverse the progress of digital development by using analogic, mechanistic components and objects with physical weight. I emulated the messaging systems of the digital era, to offer an imagination of how the future digital world would be.

Viewers can achieve common texting activity through this interactive installation, but the message is transformed into five digit signal, then the mechanical system will send out steel balls to deliver the message.

Each digit of the signal is given a physical weight, therefore, it is able to roll, collide and make noise in real world. By doing this, viewer can feel the speed and sound that normally doesn’t exist in the digital world.