The Entoptic Field Camera as Metaphor-Driven Research-through-Design with AI Technologies

TL;DR

This paper presents the Entoptic Field Camera as a metaphor-driven research tool to explore how AI technologies influence human perception and reality, combining design, field study, and critical reflection.

Contribution

It introduces a novel Research-through-Design approach using the Entoptic Field Camera metaphor to investigate AI's impact on human experience and perception.

Findings

Implications for critical and reflective AI design

A new research space for AI literacy and engagement

Insights into materiality and design affordances of AI technologies

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are widely deployed in smartphone photography; and prompt-based image synthesis models have rapidly become commonplace. In this paper, we describe a Research-through-Design (RtD) project which explores this shift in the means and modes of image production via the creation and use of the Entoptic Field Camera. Entoptic phenomena usually refer to perceptions of floaters or bright blue dots stemming from the physiological interplay of the eye and brain. We use the term entoptic as a metaphor to investigate how the material interplay of data and models in AI technologies shapes human experiences of reality. Through our case study using first-person design and a field study, we offer implications for critical, reflective, more-than-human and ludic design to engage AI technologies; the conceptualisation of an RtD research space which contributes to AI literacy discourses; and outline a research trajectory concerning materiality and design affordances of AI technologies.