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Group: Hayat Benchenaa, Héctor Ouilhet (2006)

MISSION : Identities are becoming more and more public, what if your identity no longer is a secret, everyone can have access to your identity? How can we have several identities, manage them and use them in the appropriate context and moment.

CONTEXT : With the brief being open on the context we chose to concentrate on large public spaces, where many people walk through and come to for different reasons to accomplish different tasks. Parcs, shopping centers, train stations and airports are some of the examples of the spaces we thought would be interesting to explore. We decided to place our project and design exploration in the airport, because it involves dynamic groups of people. We found airports to be a very interesting space with a large amount of flow. Airports are 'small worlds' where many different different organizations are working together to make the airport work.

Applied Dreams are a two week workshop during which we get a brief and by the end of the project have a concept with prototypes to show as a final product to show how it works. The brief for this applied dreams was called Social Agents of Change. The setting is a future world where people will have several identities and all information will be public. My team decided to make people have several identities and that information of those identities could be revealed in different spaces.
In the above flow diagram is the system flow of a person going through the system. This is how the system works as a service with touch-points. It starts with people having identities and bringing them into a space. With each identity a person brings different needs and preferences, they bring a unique configuration to every space. As they enter to a space, this space changes and adapts to their needs. The space, also reveals certain parts of your identity (this is out of a persons control). The space takes part of the identity and can do two main things: SUGGEST, the system can indicate, recommend, remind, give options, propose, advise, evoke, provide or imply. The space can also ADAPT, and change according to the preferences or needs of each user. The person then reacts to these events and emits a behavior. Sometimes this behavior changes according to other people or even by the place. This behavior affects your reputation that again is part of your identity, that later will be used to enter other public space.
We focused on how identity is defined on public spaces. How this identity can change, adapt and bring value to different spaces, with different functions. We started of by defining what public spaces are and could be. Some public spaces could be trams, parks, shopping malls, restaurants and airports are a few. Values in a space is how it can grow, shrink and change according to the people, identities in the context. Another value is how a space can adapt to a person for example in one scenario it could be a child in a tram. The child can not reach the straps to hold on safely, so the space reconfigures so the child can hold on.

In this first scenario Maria is flying to Bolivia from Japan, She arrived at the airport a few hours ago and has walked around quit a bit. It is about 30 minutes to boarding time, She decides to go sit at the gate (fig. A), she needs to go to the bathroom, gets up (fig. B) and walks around looking, she does not understand the signs and can not find the direction for the bathroom. She takes her pass (which is a RFID boarding pass) and scans (fig. C) it over her phone that shows details of her flight and the closest bathroom (fig. D).

Maria goes to the bathroom and while she is washing her hands she looks up on the mirror and there are her flight details, as she looks up again she notices there is an alert (fig. F) She has 5 minutes to get to the gate to board. This scenario shows how the airport and within the airport (the bathroom) can display information. The information of the persons identity does not always have to reveal embarassing or personal details, they can be practical and help a space such as an airport deal with the large amount of people moving with in a space.

The airport was also an interesting space because of the amount of people and the size of an airport are important. The people in this space changes constantly, with people coming to take flights, others landing, all these people walk through the airport. The system would support this flow of identities making the space more afficient.
This is Alex he is walking through the same airport as Maria in Japan. As he is walking through the airport he wants to find something to do. He swips his boarding pass on his phone (fig. A). His phone indicates that he has 57 minutes before boarding, this leaves him enough time to do something. He wants to find something to keep him busy in this time. He has three identies, playboy, golfer and lawyer. in fig. C he choses the 'playboy' mode, on the screen are displayed all the different activities and things that can be done related to this identity (fig E). Alex does not like the options so he choses to what is avilable in the golfer mode at this time. There are two options that come up, he choses to go to the Bar at which there is a PGA Match on TV.

Identity flow is a system that takes place in a public space, where many different people come into contact and bring their identities into the space with them. In the figure below is a terminal in the airport. This is showing how in one environment there are several different possible contexts and in each context a person can bring a different identity to each space.
Identity in flow is a system that takes place in an airport, where many different people come into contact and bring their identities into the space with them and how the space can suggest and adapt to the user needs. Within the airport there are many different spaces like; restaurants, bars, shops, market, casinos, waiting areas... In these places different parts of your identities can be revealed in the different spaces.

The system of the Identity in flow is in the airport context in the diagram above the grey area is the system, the green area are the different spaces within the airport where identities can be revealed. The pink bubbles are different acions that can take place in the green area. In the airport the system adapts to the user by knowing their flight information and to reveal them. Several identities can revealed through out one trip through the airport, not all the identities have to be revealed. A person can chose an identity according to the situation and the needs they would like to be supported and taken care of at that moment.

We focused on how identity is defined on public spaces. How this identity can change, adapt and bring value to different spaces, with different functions. We started of by defining what public spaces are and could be. Some public spaces could be trams, parks, shopping malls, restaurants and airports are a few. Values in a space is how it can grow, shrink and change according to the people, identities in the context. Another value is how a space can adapt to a person for example in one scenario it could be a child in a tram. The child can not reach the straps to hold on safely, so the space reconfigures so the child can hold on.
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