Knocker device remotely "knocks on wood" using smartphone app

Designers Shashwath Santosh and Nithin Eluvathingal have created a small remote device called a "knocker" that attaches to a tree and knocks on wood from afar to explore well-known superstitions.

The conceptual device "knocks on wood for you" when wood is out of reach, according to the design team. It plays on a popular belief that this action rids people of the bad luck gained from saying a future outcome aloud.

"Some believe talking about good luck ruins it unless you knock on wood," said Santosh and Eluvathingal. "But wood isn't always nearby. When wood is out of reach, this internet-connected device knocks on wood for you."

The small, white knocking devices are tied around one or multiple trees via a bright red strap. They each contain a tiny robotic arm and a display screen that flashes a ticker of each knock sent to the device.

Via a corresponding web app created by the pair, a person presses a large red button that reads "knock on wood". The signal transfers to one of the distant knockers, prompting a corresponding robotic arm to give two light taps on its tree.

According to Eluvathingal, the distance is "practically limitless" as the app is Wi-Fi connected and communicates with a central server.

For instance, someone in a cafe in Tokyo could knock on a tree in New York's Central Park, he told Dezeen.

The app also displays how many available devices are online, and confirms the unit number of the individual device that receives the knock.

"Our relationship to thought-frameworks, such as superstitious luck, is a uniquely human experience resulting from centuries of evolution," said the team.

"The knockers borrow from worlds of industrial design, engineering, manufacturing, critical thought, and world-building to celebrate 'the machine' as a medium for this interrogation."

The knockers were designed to be installed as a group, or "fleet", so that the system can receive triggers from multiple people at once.

The project builds on previous work by the pair, then under the studio name Kinky Kashayam, that played on superstitions around black cats as part of a series they call Machines Responding to Superstitions.

"What if we treat superstitions as 'challenges' worthy of commercial design intervention?" said Santosh at the time.

Shashwath Santosh is a designer based in New York who works on "experimental machines" and Google AI, while Nithin Eluvathingal works as a researcher and programmer in Toronto, currently working with McDonald's Canada.

Other conceptual design objects recently created to bring awareness to social issues include a tote bag that converts into a life jacket by a group of New York artists , a stuffed toy designed to resemble a data centre and a device that slows New York Citi Bikes when passing through rent-burdened neighbourhoods.

The photography is courtesy Shashwath Santosh and Nithin Eluvathingal

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