One of the first long-exposure photographs that proved the mapping technique.

Adam Greenfield uses the work to reflect on how design decisions about seemingly small details—such as the range of an RFID reader—can have significant implications for wider systems and infrastructures:

“Rather than asserting “an RFID” as some eternal given, something that will produce the same linear, determinate effect each and every time it is deployed, Immaterials reminds us that the choice of material, shape, size, direction, orientation and power rating of the components involved have distinct consequences for the uses to which those components can be put. And as we’ve seen, these choices can produce effects on levels seemingly entirely removed from the interaction itself.”

Dan Hill goes back to the ‘invisibility’ of electricity and relates the work to his own experiments looking at the immaterial aspects of the city:

“In their work I even see something of the early experiments of, say, Benjamin Franklin and Nikola Tesla in terms of understanding the behaviour of electricity, such that it can then be tamed, conducted, and put to work. It’s perhaps drawing a long bow to make that comparison, but it feels like a similar sentiment. Whilst electricity is hardly invisible, there is a sense of trying to understand such immaterial phenomena through prototyping and experimentation. ”

Here in the discussion Mitchell Whitelaw responds to what he sees as the false opposition between material and immaterial, suggesting transmaterial as a suitable alternative term for the new kinds of materials that we are working with. Have a look at Mitchell’s weblog for more on the term transmaterial and ‘expanded computing’.

The technically focused audience at Slashdot questioned the reasons for doing such a study. A common criticism here is that manufacturers data sheets and computer simulations should be able to give us a quicker and more accurate model of the interaction:

“For a theoretical/measured depiction they could just read the reader manufacturer’s data sheet, which will almost certainly contain a diagram of the antenna sensitivity pattern in a couple of planes and probably some concrete figures.”

“The subtlety seems to be that they’re not plotting an RF field, they’re plotting the volume in which the passive tag will respond to an RF field (of a given strength). It’s another level of abstraction. Yes, once somebody has come up with the idea then the implementation looks simple enough, but the idea is quite remarkable.”

“The main reason they did this is to map out the field interaction between the RFID tag and the reader, which is not a trivial thing to visualize based on the two data sheets.”

Also discussed here was a technical point that raises wider concerns about privacy, security and eavesdropping:

“Remember, anything radio is not theoretically limited in range. Only practical implementations have set limits. ”

“Yes, but RFID passive responses very quickly go below ambient background noise, in effect limiting even the theoretical range to 1-2 m for all but most exotic radio-noise free environments.”

This discussion shows that—even though we are keen for these images to be used as material in the discussion of privacy and the problem of invisibility—the physical limitations for snooping or eavesdropping are more complex. And if we then take RFID systems as a whole, there are far wider concerns that are much broader than physical/spatial relationships such as the long-term storage of data on travelcard or passport usage for instance.

A glimpse behind the scenes of the Immaterials filmmaking.

We received lots of emails and comments from specialists involved in radio and antenna design, who saw the visualisations as empirical evidence:

From Paul B. via email:

“I’ve worked in both passive and active RFID for about 15 years and want to congratulate you on the very effective and entertaining visualizations. I’ve done my share of winding coils, blinking LEDs and have created diagrams mapping fields so I know how hard it is to make something that is useful and actually helps non-tech people understand the weird world of RFID.”

From Dave H. via email:

“We have had to use huge anechoic chambers with massive parabolic reflectors and extremely stable transmitters to measure the field strength pattern of antennae. I know it’s a world away from that sort of large scale tech but your RFID visualisations blew me away. It’s fantastic. A brilliant idea. And it works perfectly.”

And finally some kind words from both Fast Company:

“As technology progresses, we need better symbols to understand all the gadgets and electrical hubbub that surrounds us. What could be better than symbols that actually reveal a bit about how a technology works?”

And the Helsinki Design Lab 2010:

“Rarely does one have the opportunity to watch a discourse take large strides, but I get the feeling that’s exactly what we’re witnessing as Touch/BERG elaborate nearfield communications as something with nuance – in other words, as a material.”

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It is great when a project is not just just well received, but thoroughly understood and appreciated for the underlying reasons it was made. The purpose of making the film was to introduce the ‘magic of proximity’ which is largely left out of the discourse around RFID. The film attempts to communicate the delicate and subtle aspects of a rather obscure technology, so we were pleasantly surprised by the engaged, thoughtful and broad discussions that it has initiated.

Adam Greenfield was one of the first people to pick up on the intertwined concept and aesthetics:

“What really gets me about it is the fusion of technical insight, aesthetic sense, skill in execution and sheer patience it represents. If every made thing in the world were even one-twentieth as carefully thought out as the most offhanded gesture here, we’d all of us be in inestimably better shape.”

While Lisa Smith at Core77 immediately saw the way in which the film explores RFID from a new direction:

“The video very sensitively explores the physical implications of proximity, using RFID for much more than identification.”

Moving Brands responded to the strong legacy of Fischli & Weiss and Honda Cog but saw how:

“Nearness takes the Fischli & Weiss concept further though as it explores how modern day interactive technologies (RFID) with the use of proximity detection make “touching” redundant. It’s an original modern day version of a masterpiece.”

We have always framed the film through a vivid memory of our first viewing of Der Lauf Der Dinge. But a cultural reference that emerged very quickly was Heath Robinson and Rube Goldberg. The Goldberg reference in particular stuck in many discussions, where the relative merits of physical versus virtual interactions were argued out. On Boingboing some commenters disparagingly described Nearness as the “Phantom Menace of Rube Goldbergs”, while another commenter thought the electronic aspect added a contemporary twist:

“The fact that it is entitled “Nearness” and each interface is from indirect interaction elevates this from science project to art for me.”

Guybrush over at Warrenellis.com has an amusing take on RFID chain reactions that manages to take RFID paranoia to new heights:

“Would be funnier with one of the new Barclaycards: swap your card to pay for groceries, see how thieves invisibly get your number, print a cloned card which is then used to access your bank account and to transfer all your money to Russia, where mafia associates can use it right away to pay for a plasma tv on the web which is then delivered to them in a few minutes. Closing shot of smiling Putin-lookalike turning on the tv by remote control.”

There were lots of lovely links from Delicious:

“A nice way to demonstrate near-field communication without getting all swipe-to-pay-for-x” by technekai

“No surprise, but this single page has possibly the highest concentration of awesome on the internet.” by Blaine Cook

“Lovely film of glancing blows, near-misses, wielded fields, touches-without-touching” by Rod McLaren.

And Twitter:

“Now mildly obsessed by non touch thanks to the awesome twist” by macintosh

“Beautiful piece of design and thinking. Like Moustrap for the digital generation.” by TheLeith

“Quite a thought provoking movie, such a rich capture of the nearness concept” by Dries De Roeck

But we’ll leave the final word (for now) to Bruce Sterling:

“Just cut to the chase and give them the Nobel, that’s what I say.”

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