Materiality in suspense : exploring radical interfaces capable of representing multiple physical property transformations to enable computational, physical material perception

Abstract

Years after the inception of the Radical Atoms vision, significant advances in technology have seen to dynamic tangible interfaces that bridge the biological and micromechanical to enable radical physical interaction with computation. With an increasing multi-modal complexity in such interfaces, this thesis explores a new methodologies and frameworks to designing input/output coincident and physically embodied computers. New types of Shape Changing Interfaces introduce physical perception of material properties to dynamic shape with physically accurate force feedback and introduce Radical Materiality as a way to afford physical interactions with a rendered object. Finally, the Radical Reality Test is proposed as an objective for such interfaces to eventually become indistinguishable from the physical entity or behavior they are computationally and dynamically imitating.