There is a Russian fairy tale about the goldfish who grant wishes. An old fisherman catches a goldfish who offers a wish for its freedom. A century after Pushkin wrote this famous poem the goldfish became a symbol of wish fulfillment and luck. The Venice-island fish historically was always the golden city. That means that also nowadays Venice can directly participate in fulfilling its citizens’ and guests’ wishes.
We used a metaphor of “wish” for a range of ways to greet a stranger. All of them are simple and short, non obliging the user who’ve chosen to be an actor to interact with the other user for more than just a few seconds. We leave participants the right to choose if they want to continue an acquaintance or to go their own way around Venice. The user who chose to be a spectator must only wait the application sets up his encounters, the actors to watch. An interaction between two users could be metaphorically called “a wish granting”.
Our likely user is open-minded. Age is not important. The application is an opportunity to meet people, but doesn’t oblige the user to make more than a little interaction.
The application aims to structure human behaviour, in particular to provoke strange situations where people in an entusiastic, shy or embarassed way interact, remembering this gorgeous emotion even after.
Wish Fish evokes the lost public interactivity of Venetion street life. It divides users into actors and spectators as in a real theatrical play.
People choose a wish from a list and take part actively in the game or just look at what happen’s around them.
It was important for us to crate not just an amusing application for a mobile phone, but also a powerful instrument that allows people to get in touch in the real world, having a different from usual emotion. We wanted and finally achieved the effect of a deep space behind the little screen of a mobile phone, the sense of a small theatre in a real application.
Scenario video
It was a kind of test of people’s willingness to greet strangers with physical gestures.
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