Ku: iyashikei-net by Urico Fujii and Ann Poochareon is a networked crying sculpture that allows people to communicate through the interface of tears, a physical output of human emotional expression that has been overlooked, and never made exchangeable with current communication devices.

Two sides, installed at different locations, communicate over the Internet. On Side A, Tear Well allows a sad person to express his/her feeling by pumping a traditional water pump, the water representing her/his tears. The tears are sent over to Side B over the Internet, where teardrop sculptures called KU act as networked surrogates.

As soon as Side B receives the crying signal, KUs start to cry. When a viewer on Side B wipes KUs’ tears, KUs stop crying. At the same time comforting response is sent to the sad person to cheer them up.

PDF presentation.