Massage me
2007
A wearable massage interface that turns a video game player’s excess energy into a back massage for an innocent bystander.
Playing Massage me requires two people, one who wears the jacket to receive the massage and one who massages the person wearing the jacket. Soft flexible buttons are embedded in back of the jacket so that wearing it turns your back into a gamepad. All you need to do is to sit or lay down in front of a video game player and you will be able to enjoy a back massage while the game lasts.
Otherwise wasted button-pushing energy is transformed into a massage and the addicted game player becomes an inexhaustible masseur.
The soft flexible buttons are made from layers of conductive fabric and are embedded in the back of the jacket. These buttons register the massage moves and interpret them before passing them on to the console as control signals. This means that Massage me works with existing games, and the best massages come from playing games that require the player to press a lot of buttons and combinations.
Although Massage me currently works with a hacked a Playstation Controller, we believe it wouldn’t be hard to convert it to other consoles by hacking their controllers.
Thanks to Art University Linz,
Interface Cultures,
Bauhaus University Weimar,
Ars Electronica Festival 2007 and ACAR2