Family Matters
Physical Computing Object, 2004

Walking through neighborhoods, we often hear muffled bits of conversations and activity within the confines of the private home. More often than not, our instinct might be to stop and intake the moment not intended for our eyes or ears. Obviously, it's socially unacceptable to do this and in fact, we wouldn't normally want to burden ourselves with such trivial matters anyway. However, at some point in time, at certain unnamed dwellings, the inhabitants could benefit from an interruption of good intentions.

Family Matters is a physical computing piece controlled by the user interacting with a classic toy doll house. MaxMSP is responsible for simultaneously running four small abstract video clips through the rear windows of the house. The audience is curiously drawn to the muffled sound of crickets and filtered light showing through the front windows. Upon exploring the source of the sound and light, the user opens the spring-loaded front door to look inside. Each time the door is opened, the audio source changes from the peaceful night scene to one of four randomly chosen, processed audio clips in order to present a different scenario of a seemingly private family situation.