Triangles

2001

Hiroshi Ishii (US) (JP)
Matt Gorbet (US)
Maggie Orth (US)

Emily Cooper
James Hsiao
Ali Mazalek
Tangible Media Group

With this construction kit the user can create a variety of physical structures, from two-dimensional tiling to three-dimensional structures, while directly manipulating the corresponding digital information structure. One might compare "Triangles" to the English alphabet. It is entirely up to the content designer to decide what kind of vocabulary, language, or grammar to design with this alphabet.

"Triangles", originally created by Matt Gorbet and Maggie Orth in 1996, is a construction kit that consists of flat "Triangles", each of which has both a physical and a digital identity. The user can use the kit to simultaneously create physical arrangements (including both two-dimensional tiles and three-dimensional structures) and digital representations that correspond to the tangible structure.

Each physical triangle has magnetic, electrically-conducting connectors on each side. When they connect with each other, a communication circuit is formed and each Triangle conveys its identity and relative position to the host computer. Changes in the "Triangles"’ physical configuration trigger pre-programmed digital events to enable direct manipulation of the topological structure of information.

Creating new tangible interfaces by giving new digital functions to objects which are already constrained by specific familiar meanings (such as a pencil which we understand as a tool for writing) fundamentally limits our freedom to ascribe digital meaning.

To overcome this limitation, "Triangles" "pUrposely" uses the triangle’s abstract form to let users express and manipulate information. While the pencil is a tangible tool for creating unconstrained representations in a single medium, "Triangles" is a unique authoring system that lets users create and manipulate multimedia structures through physical actions.