Voices of Olin
An interactive RFID + spatial audio installation for Olin College's presidential inauguration — unfinished community prototypes speak their stories through smart listening pedestals, transforming the everyday objects of making into a living, collective portrait of Olin.
Overview
Voices of Olin is an interactive installation concept proposed for Olin College of Engineering’s presidential inauguration. The project invites the Olin community to share unfinished prototypes, artifacts, sketches, and objects — and the stories behind them — transforming the institution’s culture of making into a living, collective portrait.
Rather than documenting finished achievements, the installation celebrates the process of making itself. Every unfinished thing carries a story: why it was made, what it taught, why it remains unfinished, and what it might become.
Three-Act Structure
Act I — Gathering the Stories
A one- or two-day community workshop invites members of the Olin community to bring an unfinished prototype, artifact, or object meaningful to their time at Olin. Alumni and families who cannot attend may contribute by shipping an object to campus.
Each participant submits:
- An art sculpture object with a unique RFID tag attached to the bottom
- A voice recording or typed 4–6 sentence description responding to prompts about the object
Example prompts:
- Why did you make it?
- What did you learn while making it?
- Why is it still unfinished?
- What do you hope it becomes?
Voice recordings are automatically transcribed via Speech Recognition; typed submissions are automatically converted to audio via Text-to-Speech — so every object carries both a physical and an audio story, regardless of input format.
Act II — Listening to the Community
Collected artifacts are displayed in a central campus location. The installation consists of:
- A curated shelf of RFID-tagged artifacts
- 3–5 interactive listening pedestals, each equipped with a speaker and an RFID tag reader
Visitors pick up any object from the shelf and place it on a pedestal. The RFID reader identifies the object and the embedded computer plays back its voice recording — creating the impression that the unfinished things themselves are speaking.
Because only a few objects can be active at any given time, visitors continually decide which stories are heard. Certain objects naturally emerge as the Voices of Olin — artifacts the community repeatedly chooses to revisit.
The installation also extends ongoing research in Spatial Interaction Design, transforming listening into a spatial experience shaped by movement, proximity, orientation, and object manipulation.
Act III — Bringing the Voices to the Inauguration
A small number of community-selected artifacts accompany President May during the inauguration ceremony. Displayed around the stage, they serve as quiet reminders of Olin’s creativity — silent during the ceremony, but symbolically representing all the voices already shared.
As a closing gesture, President May picks up one of the artifacts and invites students to join her. Together they carry the Voices of Olin back to the exhibition, where each artifact placed on a pedestal becomes audible once again. Rather than concluding with a final speech, the ceremony concludes by returning the community’s voices to the community.
See also: Drawn to Life — a companion proposal using AI-animated community drawings and motion tracking.