James Auger (2012). "Demo or die: Overcoming oddness through aesthetic experience”

About the Text

The text of James Auger explores the topic of aesthetic experience, where you try to put an idea into an experienceable prototype to get feedback on it. This works because the prototype is more graspable and you can feel and understand the idea.

Iso-Phone

Rather than thinking about how to improve the actual mobile phones, James Auger asked how to improve making a call. So he asked himself what a qualitative call contains.

Source: https://subdogmatic.com/ISO-PHONE

With that, in mind, Auger and Loizeau created the ISO-Phone.

The caller floats in a pool with a helmet on, which guarantees that they are not drowning and their head is over the water. The water on the other side is heated so the caller feels warm and relaxed. The whole Phone is in a distraction-free environment because this pool is just made for one caller. The only thing people receive is a voice connection to another person using the same phone in another place.

Aesthetic Experience

So what is an aesthetic experience?

With the example above of the “Iso-Phone” we see how people can have an aesthetic experience even though it’s just a working prototype.

People can experience the idea in a form of a demonstration, this can happen as well to the broad mass. If you present it at the right place, such an idea can be seen by scientists, engineers, designers, and as well managers for large telecommunication companies. Because of their proficiency the chance is high, that they are interested in experiencing the idea and therefore coming into a discussion with you. Through that, you’ll not only get important insights into how to develop it further, but you also give them something to think about, changing their perspective and being able to change the world slightly through that.

For example, people said: