A Table of Two Cities connects friends and family in London and New York through a shared interactive café experience. Networked multi-touch tables enable café-goers in these remote locations to share a meal and communicate through the table surface. The café table conveys the presence of the other café-goer and becomes a liminal surface connecting close friends in distant cities. The project included a proposal booklet, online website and a functional, interactive prototype table. This project was created in collaboration with John Nussey, table design and multi-touch development, and Craig Runyan, Flash development and design.
A Making of A Table of Two Cities (Video)
Interacting with A Table of Two Cities (Video)
postcard explaining the process
images from the proposal booklet
The concept of overlapping spaces and the conversations taking place within those spaces are communicated through the logo. The image shows two quotation marks overlapping each other and forming the shape of a table. The colours are representations of each city. New York is represented by blue because of the colour of the buses, post boxes and telephone booths in that city. London is represented by red for similar reasons.
A split-screen prototype table was built simulating a pair of café tables in two separate cities. The table was shown at the 2009 Central Saint Martins Degree Show and also at the 2009 London Design Festival. For the purposes of the shows the table was divided into a New York side and a London side. People at the shows could move the tableware around on the London side of the table and a friend on the New York side would be able to see what they're doing. People could also see that when the person on one side moves a table object closer to the graphic of another table object the graphics begin to pulse. This prototype did not include the proposed ‘digital serviette’, mobile photo sharing and digital handprint features. However, these could be built into the final system.
