The brief started with tech gurus and the assumption that people trust figures like Steve Jobs and the products they sell far too easily. Three rounds of street interviews showed something else. People saw their devices as tools. Those around 50 and older felt they had no choice but to keep up with e-banking and ticket machines built for a digital mindset they never grew up with.
We narrowed the topic to digital literacy, a question of mindset rather than intelligence. Quick prototypes made it tangible: threads that tangled like data, a punch-card labyrinth game and a role-play counting every step of buying a museum ticket online. A keyboard meant to make digital natives feel lost mostly frustrated people. The class crit showed we had been talking instead of testing.
Rather than teaching, we asked how to make people curious about a new technology and chose AI. A quick ChatGPT and TouchDesigner prototype at an elderly home showed the residents were not the right audience, so we moved to people aged 50 to 60, shortly before retirement. Their main worry was losing touch with people once work stops.
A single personality tile steered the whole prompt into stereotypes, so we replaced it with three open questions: what you enjoyed most ten years ago, which animal you would be (you draw it) and how active you are. After a lot of prompt tuning the suggestions felt personal. An MDF podium brought the touchscreen into public space.
Then we noticed the irony. We had set out to criticise blind trust in technology and were now building an AI that tells people how to live. So Livello became a retirement guru that hands out confident, slightly absurd advice. We set it up outside the Migros at Kreuzplatz in Zürich and cut the footage into a film that presents the idea with a straight face.
The brief started with tech gurus and the assumption that people trust figures like Steve Jobs and the products they sell far too easily. Three rounds of street interviews showed something else. People saw their devices as tools. Those around 50 and older felt they had no choice but to keep up with e-banking and ticket machines built for a digital mindset they never grew up with.
We narrowed the topic to digital literacy, a question of mindset rather than intelligence. Quick prototypes made it tangible: threads that tangled like data, a punch-card labyrinth game and a role-play counting every step of buying a museum ticket online. A keyboard meant to make digital natives feel lost mostly frustrated people. The class crit showed we had been talking instead of testing.
Rather than teaching, we asked how to make people curious about a new technology and chose AI. A quick ChatGPT and TouchDesigner prototype at an elderly home showed the residents were not the right audience, so we moved to people aged 50 to 60, shortly before retirement. Their main worry was losing touch with people once work stops.
A single personality tile steered the whole prompt into stereotypes, so we replaced it with three open questions: what you enjoyed most ten years ago, which animal you would be (you draw it) and how active you are. After a lot of prompt tuning the suggestions felt personal. An MDF podium brought the touchscreen into public space.
Then we noticed the irony. We had set out to criticise blind trust in technology and were now building an AI that tells people how to live. So Livello became a retirement guru that hands out confident, slightly absurd advice. We set it up outside the Migros at Kreuzplatz in Zürich and cut the footage into a film that presents the idea with a straight face.
Livello
Tech Gurus