Making Ritual Machines: The Mobile Phone as a Networked Material for Research Products

Viewing the mobile telephone as a networked material, we demonstrate the ways in which we have used it to make Research Products for the ‘Family Rituals 2.0’ inquiry of families separated by work. Drawing from a diversity of sources we survey and deconstruct the phone as a material that can be worked to a vast range of technical effects, extended by hardware and configured by software. We demonstrate the transformations of hacking and prototyping practices necessary to construct complex Research Products through the case study of our machines. We offer the Interaction Design community seven specific and actionable techniques for using mobile telephones in Research Products. Finally, we open up a broader discussion for researchers and practitioners using mobile phones as a design material in their work.